TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
GR2 (Government): Well, this court has already ruled that the fact that an applicant's case is the first of its kind does not render the domestic court's interpretation and application of the legislation arbitrary or unpredictable.
GR2 (Government): Second, none of the applicants, including Mr. Wawrzycka's
GR2 (Government): children, have suffered any damage to health in consequence of the vaccination, nor have any of them demonstrated the probability that in their particular case the relevant vaccine would cause serious problems.
GR2 (Government): Yet the applicants could have claimed damages under the old civil code.
GR2 (Government): Third, it is true that applicant Nowotna's attendance of nursery school was first allowed and later terminated.
GR2 (Government): This may look odd, but we cannot disregard that the applicant was admitted in 2006 as her parents submitted a false medical report.
GR2 (Government): The next year, however, the hygiene authority during an inspection found out that the applicant had not actually been vaccinated.
GR2 (Government): In fact, her parents signed a declaration in 2004 refusing the child's vaccination.
GR2 (Government): Even though instructed afterwards that an incompletely vaccinated child whose health conditions allow for vaccination cannot attend nursery school, the parents remained inactive.
GR2 (Government): And therefore, the director of the nursery school concerned was left with no other option and put an end to the applicant's attendance in 2008.
GR2 (Government): It also appears that someone falsely amended applicant Hornick's medical report with a charmingly equivocal formula, playing with the concept of law.
GR2 (Government): Curiously enough, in line with the applicant's arguments on lawfulness, I cannot help quoting it, the applicant is not lacking any regular vaccination prescribed by law.
GR2 (Government): In sum, it seems that these two particular cases must be differentiated from the others due to some bad faith on the part of the parents who misled the authorities.
GR2 (Government): Well, my next point, the last but one, in fact, concerns the right to education.
GR2 (Government): The applicant's complaints based on Article 2 of the first protocol are of the same nature as those claimed under Article 8 of the convention.
GR2 (Government): In addition, we deem these complaints incompatible ratione materie with Article 2 of the first protocol, for under the court's case law, the notion of education does not concern preschool education, or the more optional.
GR2 (Government): At the relevant period, Czech nursery schools, as for example French nursery schools, did not accept non-vaccinated children unless they had been found immune to infection or showed health contraindication.
GR2 (Government): In any case, I share the opinion of the German government that well-compulsory vaccination aims at facilities at this low educational level.
GR2 (Government): This should at least be taken into account when assessing proportionality.
GR2 (Government): And I come to my last point, namely the freedom of consents.
GR2 (Government): I'm convinced that, and the interventions filed to the game chamber by other governments support this view, that the issue of vaccination does not fall within the scope of Article 9.
GR2 (Government): Furthermore, in Bofa and others versus San Marino, the commission refused to extend the protection of Article 9 to parents who wish to evade the legal obligation to have their children vaccinated.
GR2 (Government): There is yet another strong reason for the court not to consider the complaints under Article 9 separately.
GR2 (Government): None of the applicants made convincing arguments to grant exemption from obligatory vaccination on the grounds of their freedom of consents.
GR2 (Government): As the Constitutional Court stated in the applicant Vavrzycka's case, it cannot accept cases that are only general and cannot be seen as attaining a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion, and importance.
GR2 (Government): My government cannot but agree with the Constitutional Court that there is no real reason why the applicant's personal views should prevail over the general interest of the society in the protection of public health.
GR2 (Government): And for all these considerations, I respectfully propose holding that there was no violation of the convention.
GR2 (Government): I would conclude with a quote from our Constitutional Court judgment.
GR2 (Government): Vaccination in general is an immunization tool preventing selected infections, constitutes a social benefit requiring shared responsibility of the members of the society.
GR2 (Government): That is an act of social solidarity of those who take risk in order to protect the health.
GR2 (Government): And let me now somewhat introduce Professor Roman Primula, chairman of the Czech Vaccination Society and chairman or member of various European scientific societies or platforms.
GR2 (Government): He also chaired the Central Emergency Committee during the recent pandemic crisis in my country.
GR2 (Government): Mr. President, I suggest giving him
GR2 (Government): the floor for a couple of remarks.
Robert Spano (JudgeP): Mr. Prymula, you have the floor.
GR1 (Government): ladies and gentlemen, vaccination is one of the most useful tools for preventing infectious diseases and reducing morbidity and mortality.
GR1 (Government): Availability of vaccine has had a substantial impact on rates of vaccine-preventable diseases across the world.
GR1 (Government): However, achieving high vaccination rates is challenged by less than optimal acceptance.
GR1 (Government): In countries such as United States and Australia and many European countries, vaccine mandates such as those requiring vaccination for entry into school have been used to increase and sustain vaccination rates.
GR1 (Government): Multiple countries in Europe, including France and Italy, have recently faced outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, and in response have changed their policies, whereas other countries are considering introducing immunization mandates.
GR1 (Government): Mandatory vaccination in EU countries was associated with higher prevalence of measles and pertussis vaccination.
GR1 (Government): Mandatory vaccination was associated with higher vaccination coverage.
GR1 (Government): Moreover, mandatory vaccination was associated with lower measles incidence.
GR1 (Government): While the vast majority of parents vaccinate their children, many parents are unfamiliar with vaccine-preventable diseases and hold misconceptions regarding vaccination.
GR1 (Government): Maintaining public confidence in the safety and utility of vaccines is particularly challenging, as diseases have been effectively controlled, primarily by the sustained use of vaccines, resulting in public and media attention on vaccine safety rather than prevention of disease.
GR1 (Government): Vaccine hesitancy has been growing worldwide.
GR1 (Government): The WHO has recently named vaccine hesitancy among the top 10 threats to public health.
GR1 (Government): In the Czech Republic, vaccine refusal has been growing due to proliferation of vaccine misinformation on social media and growing perception that vaccination requirements violate personal liberties.
GR1 (Government): Recent measles outbreak in the Czech Republic highlights the urgency of effective communication interventions with vaccine-hesitant parents to inform planning of future educational programs to boost parenter vaccine confidence.
GR1 (Government): In most developed countries, indecision to lay public opposition to vaccination is becoming a health and social problem.
GR1 (Government): According to a survey conducted by the Vaccination Trust Project, Europe has the highest number of negative responses in terms of perception of the importance of vaccination, its safety and effectiveness, leading to the highest degree of hesitancy against vaccination in the population.
GR1 (Government): If vaccination is successful in a given country, this will significantly reduce the prevalence of the previously feared disease against which it is vaccinated.
GR1 (Government): This disease becomes relatively rare.
GR1 (Government): This will bluntly lay public vigilance towards it and shift public attention to discussions about the level of risk involved in a given vaccination and discussions about why to vaccinate against it when it is almost no longer present.
GR1 (Government): This erroneous attitude leads to a decreasing vaccination rate and the subsequent return of previously controlled vaccine-preventable diseases to the population.
GR1 (Government): The European Parliament noted that widespread and growing reluctance towards vaccination had already reached worrying proportions because of the large scale of the related health consequences.
GR1 (Government): Given the usefulness of vaccination as a prevention tool, the European Parliament is asking member states to ensure that vaccinations are extended beyond early childhood and that it applies to all age groups to ensure lifelong protection from vaccine-preventable diseases.
GR1 (Government): Thus, weakening public confidence in vaccination worldwide is a cause for concern and a major challenge for public health professionals.
GR1 (Government): Furthermore, the European Parliament called on member states to develop a comprehensive European Union-wide action plan to highlight the societal problem of vaccine hesitancy and strengthen member states' commitments to immunization as a priority public health measure, including priority and specific regional measures, and take into account the changing circumstances and specific problems facing individual member states.
GR1 (Government): The position of the most expert on vaccination can be expressed as follows.
GR1 (Government): It is one of the most important achievements of public health, which enables the health and lives of citizens to be protected under health immunity.
GR1 (Government): Or also, vaccination has brought tremendous health and socioeconomic benefits for individuals, populations, and society as a whole.
GR1 (Government): It is one of the most cost-effective public health interventions.
GR1 (Government): Thank you for listening.
Robert Spano (JudgeP): I thank the government for their submissions.
Robert Spano (JudgeP): I now call the representative of the applicants, Ms. Candigliota, you have the floor.
AP1 (Applicant): it's an honor to appear before you today on behalf of the children and parents in the case related to the system of mandatory vaccination in the Czech Republic, which disproportionately interferes with the rights of the children to education, the rights of the parents to care for their children following their opinions, conviction, and the conscience, and in the best interest of the children.
AP1 (Applicant): And it also interferes with the right of the families to the protection of private life.
AP1 (Applicant): Our main arguments are as follows.
AP1 (Applicant): First, denying the access of the children to preschool education cannot be the punishment for the child not being fully vaccinated.
AP1 (Applicant): Any restrictions on the access of the child to education resulting from the protection of public health must be convincingly reasoned and cannot be arbitrary.
AP1 (Applicant): Despite the individual member states having a wide margin of appreciation in the matter of health care system, including the vaccination systems, such a system may not entirely ignore the right to freedom of thought and conscience.
AP1 (Applicant): On the contrary, it must take regard to such a right, and it must enable some exemptions based on this right.
AP1 (Applicant): Such a system cannot and may not force people to act contrary to their conscience and against the best interest of the child.
AP1 (Applicant): Third, apart from that, the vaccination policy must include and reflect respect to the right to freedom of thought and conscience.
AP1 (Applicant): It must be transparent, well-reasoned, proportionate, without the influence of persons who are in conflict of interest.
AP1 (Applicant): And last but not least, it must include fair compensation for those who suffer harm to their health.
AP1 (Applicant): The gravest errors on the side of the government are the following ones.
AP1 (Applicant): First, vaccinations are introduced as mandatory, and accordingly, repressive measures are adopted in a non-transparent manner without sufficient reasoning, disproportionately and irrationally with involvement and influence of people who share vested interests in the matter and are in a massive conflict of interest.
AP1 (Applicant): Second, despite one of the chambers of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic having adjudicating and exceptions from the blanket mandatory vaccination policy on the grounds of freedom of thought and conscience, the applicants were not given an opportunity of such an exemptions.
AP1 (Applicant): Third, in the case of harm to person's health originating as a result of mandatory vaccination, even after the recent adoption of the compensation bill, the right to just satisfaction of the harm is not guaranteed.
AP1 (Applicant): Firstly, I would like to address the first point, which is the lack of credibility, lack of reasoning, and disproportionality of the blanket mandatory vaccination policy in the Czech Republic.
AP1 (Applicant): The government refers to the approach and attitudes of the Czech medical professional societies in support of mandatory vaccination.
AP1 (Applicant): In this forum, there is no room to debate and rebut their individual statements.
AP1 (Applicant): But what must be mentioned is that if we uncritically followed the stance of the Czech professional associations and their call for repressions and repressive attitudes, regardless human rights, we would still conduct involuntary sterilization of Roma women and disabled women.
AP1 (Applicant): And up to this day, the psychiatric patients would be detained in cages.
AP1 (Applicant): It is mainly because of this professional association that the Czech Republic is still actively reverting to such practices as placing newborns and infants in government care institutions, ill treatment of psychiatric clients, use of surgical castration or of sex offenders, and other similar inhuman practices.
AP1 (Applicant): The very fact that an opinion is adopted by a Czech professional association is not a decisive one.
AP1 (Applicant): It is solely and merely one of the claims that needs to be approached critically.
AP1 (Applicant): Mainly, it is necessary to take into consideration that medical professional associations used to cooperate with the former totalitarian regime.
AP1 (Applicant): They used to participate in breaches of human rights, and they continue dismissing and despising human rights and freedoms.
AP1 (Applicant): They do not even respect the right to freedom of expression of their own members, doctors.
AP1 (Applicant): So the agreement among the doctors is only an illusionary one.
AP1 (Applicant): Those who harbor slightly different opinions, and they don't necessarily have to be opposed to vaccination, but merely do not promote repressive regimes and called for safer vaccinations, are being silenced and have to face threats of professional liquidation.
AP1 (Applicant): Roman Primula and Hanna Caberno-Kovar, who have been invited by the government as consultants, definitely do not represent the experts who promote safe vaccination and the best interest of the children.
AP1 (Applicant): Their excessive conflicts of interest are something we have informed this court about in detail.
AP1 (Applicant): We have submitted the analysis of the League of Human Rights from 2012, which describes the close ties of these persons and their professional association with producers of vaccinations.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. Roman Primula not only profits from his ties
AP1 (Applicant): with pharmaceutical industry, but he was not able to obtain a security clearance for more than one year up to now.
AP1 (Applicant): Both of the mentioned persons and their associations lack professional credibility entirely.
AP1 (Applicant): They promote the interests of the vaccine producers and not the interests of the children.
AP1 (Applicant): Despite that, the government follows the opinions of such so-called experts.
AP1 (Applicant): The question I have to ask is, does the government really have no independent, impartial and professional credible experts?
AP1 (Applicant): This brings me to the most important points and arguments about what is that is significantly wrong with the blanket mandatory vaccination policy in the Czech Republic.
AP1 (Applicant): First, there is no well-reasoned report nor analysis that would, before the introduction of obligation of vaccination against each of the nine diseases, assess the necessity of such a measure for the protection of public health, and that would be for the introduction of the condition of vaccination against every one of the nine diseases for the access to pre-school education, assess the necessity of such a measure for the protection of public health.
AP1 (Applicant): Second, such a reasoned report and analysis cannot, in any case, be replaced by an entirely one-sided and purpose-based, exposed, drafted opinion of the professional association of the here-presented consultants who entirely lack credibility.
AP1 (Applicant): Such a report, in its entirety, not exceeding 15 pages and covering all nine diseases subject to mandatory vaccination, has been submitted.
AP1 (Applicant): I would like to stress that their opinion does not at all address the matter of necessity of the condition of vaccination against each of these diseases for access to pre-school education.
AP1 (Applicant): Third, although such an analysis has been made in case of vaccination against hepatitis B in the past, with conclusion that introducing blanket vaccination is not suitable, several years later, such a vaccination was introduced not only as a blanket measure, but immediately as a mandatory one.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant, Pavel Vavrička, was subject to a penalty, inter alia, for failure to comply with this vaccination.
AP1 (Applicant): And fourth, since May 2020, the amended Act on the Protection of Public Health has come into effect, which broadens the prohibition of access of not fully vaccinated children, not only to the nursery schools and facilities with state subsidies, but also to any private, non-educational facilities for the children of pre-school age.
AP1 (Applicant): As it has been affirmed by the response by the Ministry of Health to our application for information, the amendment of the Act was adopted without any scientific evidence or analysis that would reason such an oppressive measure.
AP1 (Applicant): The government is attempting to punish to the large extent and to complicate the lives of the families who do not obediently follow the state vaccination scheme.
AP1 (Applicant): They do it because they can.
AP1 (Applicant): And they do not at all bother to even pretend that they have any professional basis for doing so.
AP1 (Applicant): Neither the government nor the Czech courts address the fact that the existing system of repressions is not rational.
AP1 (Applicant): It makes no sense whatsoever, and mainly that for the access of the child to pre-school facilities, even vaccination against diseases where the transmission among children is not a realistic threat, this includes, for example, tetanus and hepatitis B. The unreasonableness lies also
AP1 (Applicant): in the fact that the staff of the schools are not subject to mandatory vaccination and not even tested for the mentioned diseases.
AP1 (Applicant): For more details, we would like to refer to the well-reasoned and accurately argued dissenting opinion of the Constitutional Court Judge Katerina Šimáčková, as well as to the public, as to the opinion of the former public defender of rights, Anna Šabatová, who were the sole officials in the Czech Republic to be interested in the question of proportionality of the blanket mandatory vaccination policy in the Czech Republic.
AP1 (Applicant): Their conclusion is that the Czech law is disproportionate, irrational, and constitutionally nonconforming.
AP1 (Applicant): Both the constitutional judge and the former ombudsperson consider the denial of the pre-school education to a child to be a sanction for violation of the obligation to subject the child to the full list of the prescribed mandatory vaccination.
AP1 (Applicant): In the opinion of the judge Šimáčková, the majority of judges of the Constitutional Court failed to meet their obligation to assess impartially and without prejudice the constitutionality of the legislation on mandatory vaccination and merely approach this legal test as the defense of the general suitability of a vaccination.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, Honorable Judges, let me move on the second argument
AP1 (Applicant): of my speech that is the argument of freedom of conscience and thought.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant Pavel Vavřička and the parents of the applicants are loving and caring parents for whom the interest of their children is an absolute priority.
AP1 (Applicant): In the case of applicants Proko Proleček and Markéta Novotná, their parents even hold a university degree in the field of biology and they do not fully dismiss and reject vaccination.
AP1 (Applicant): They even allowed their children to be vaccinated against the most serious diseases in cases where they assess the benefits of vaccination or overwhelmingly prevail over the risks.
AP1 (Applicant): All of the parents acted in line with their best conviction and conscience.
AP1 (Applicant): In 2015, the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic decided that there must be an exemption from the blanket policy of mandatory vaccination on grounds of the freedom of thought and conscience.
AP1 (Applicant): In its judgment, it stated that in case of the exemption, I quote, a public body must not subject to the obligation of vaccination or to a sanction or enforce it in any other way.
AP1 (Applicant): In other words, the Constitutional Court found that the thought and conscience of the parents in certain cases shall override the obligation of vaccination.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicants, however, were not given an opportunity to exercise this exemption.
AP1 (Applicant): In the case of applicant Vavrička, the court merely addressed the matter of freedom of religion, which was not the right relied on by the applicant.
AP1 (Applicant): Such an exemption based on the right to freedom of thought and conscience was not at all assessed in the cases of other applicants.
AP1 (Applicant): The government did not confer such an exemption within the law, and there is not another single case of a recognized exception apart from the mentioned case from 2015.
AP1 (Applicant): It is true that the medical authorities as well as the World Health Organization recommend a variety of vaccination, but contrary to the Czech professional organizations, it doesn't require the application of repressions, and it doesn't require disproportionate interference with human rights.
AP1 (Applicant): Interference with human rights in the form of a refusal of education to the children who are not fully vaccinated and enforcement of vaccination via penalties and fines.
AP1 (Applicant): One thing is enforcing of the vaccination being available and the cost covered by the state.
AP1 (Applicant): However, it is a completely different question when we assess its blanket enforcement against everyone, even against a minority of people who are prevented from complying with the mandatory vaccination on the grounds of their conscience.
AP1 (Applicant): It is necessary to bear in mind that science is a tool for improvement of the quality of people's lives, but it is not and cannot be the only voice to be heard.
AP1 (Applicant): Otherwise, we would have to succumb to the dictatorship of professionals, or to put it more precisely, the dictatorship of the pharmaceutical industry.
AP1 (Applicant): The findings of medical science, however, are limited and undergo continuous development.