Court overturns ruling in Gypsy sterilization case

PRAGUE, Czech Republic: A hospital does not have to compensate a young Gypsy woman it sterilized without her consent, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

In overturning the Czech Republic's first monetary award for forced sterilization, the court said the statute of limitations had expired.

Human rights groups believe hundreds of women from the Czech Republic's Gypsy minority of about 250,000 people were sterilized against their will.

Under communism, which ended in the Czech Republic in 1989, sterilization was a semiofficial tool to limit the population of Gypsies, or Roma as they prefer to be called, whose large families were seen as a burden on the state. The practice ended only recently, according to a 2005 investigative report by the national ombudsman.

Iveta Cervenakova, now 32, was illegally sterilized without her consent in 1997 after she gave birth to her second daughter by Caesarean section.

She filed a lawsuit in 2005. A lower court ruled two years later that the hospital in the northeastern city of Ostrava had to pay compensation and apologize for violating her rights.

Court spokesman Petr Angyalossy said the 500,000 koruna ($26,330; 20,460 euros) judgment was overturned because the award came after the 3-year statute of limitations in the case had expired.

He said the hospital needs only apologize.

The Czech League for Human Rights sharply criticized the ruling and said it would appeal it to the Supreme Court. Lawyer David Zahumensky of the League for Human Rights, who consulted with Cervenakova's lawyer, said she will argue that there should be no statute of limitation applied in sterilization cases.

Several other Czech Gypsy women are seeking damages from hospitals for illegal sterilizations.