Published on November 26, 2009
Extension of a mining area
The deputy of the Defender inquired into the steps of the District Mining Authority in Ostrava and the Czech Mining Authority in Prague and found maladministration inter alia in that the author of the expert reports which served as underlying documents for decision-making by the authorities was biased.
The deputy subsequently decided to order an expert standpoint aimed at assessing whether the conclusions of the expert reports were based on sufficient, exact underlying documents, whether the evaluations were based on the claimed content of the assessment and whether the interpretation of the expert reports indicated in the authorities’ decisions were fully in accordance with the conclusions and recommendations of the reports.
According to the conclusions of the expert standpoint drawn up by the Institute of Geological Sciences at the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University in Brno, the expert reports and reports on which the decisions of the bodies of mining administration were based had used erroneous primary data and erroneously determined groundwater levels. Methodological and conceptual shortcomings appeared also in the interpretations of the data.
Based on the aforementioned findings, the deputy of the Defender submitted a motion for renewal of the proceedings concerning extension of the Staříč mining area.