More than one hundred Czech national monuments have been seized by the courts. “Karlštejn and Hluboká confiscated,“ announces the headline on the front page of Lidové Noviny, which features a photo-montage of four of the country's most famous castles. The daily reports that for the last nine months, these treasures of Gothic and Baroque architecture have been listed in the land register under the "unflattering label of confiscated," as a result of “a tedious dispute" between the National Monuments Institute and a private company which obtained a concession to manage the gardens of Prague Castle. The “slow-moving and boring legal battle" has been ongoing since 2006, explains the daily. The Czech state is not likely to lose control of the historic monuments, but the conflict may prevent the National Monuments Institute from obtaining EU grants. In dealing with a case which concerns “the state that pays its bills," the courts have been surprisingly slow to come to a decision, remarks Lidové Noviny.
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