Official hunt for hectares: 53 hectares were lost in Česká Lípa

Imagine the state announcing to you: your land will be part of the hunt. Maybe you agree with that, maybe not. In any case, you expect one banality, namely that the office will be able to accurately count hectares, explain why it classified which land somewhere, and if you ask it something specific, it will also give you a specific answer. In Česká Lípa, however, a story unfolded around Dubnice's new hunting ground, which is more reminiscent of an administrative detective story than a demonstration of convincing public administration.

The drive runs from January 2023. That in itself is remarkable. The office has already made a decision once, but its decision from January 2024 was canceled by the Regional Office of the Liberec Region and the matter was returned to it. In a normally functioning system, this should be the moment when the red light goes on in the office: the second time everything has to be bulletproof. Maps, parcels, owners, consents, hectares, legal conclusions. No fog. No "somehow it works out".

But on August 12, 2026, a new, sixty-nine-page decision arrives. One would expect an almost clerical epic, after reading which not a single question remains. But questions remained. And some are so simple that you don't need a law degree to do them. All you need is a calculator.

The office states the basic area of ​​hunting land as 1,227.2555 hectares. Of this, 947.9792 hectares are to be contiguous plots and 226.1499 hectares are enclaves. Add it up. It comes out to 1,174.1291 hectares. Difference?53.1264 per hectare.Over half a million square meters.

Where did they go?

Perhaps there is an explanation somewhere in the tables or administrative file. Then the office should have explained it clearly. If there is no explanation, the problem is even greater. In proceedings where legality depends precisely on the size, context and ownership structure of the land, namely 53 hectares, there is no minor accounting inaccuracy. This is not the difference due to rounding to the fourth decimal place. That's an area the size of dozens of football fields.

And we continue.

An additional 278.8303 hectares of land owned by other owners should be added to the new hunting. The law allows it. But at the same time, the law does not want land to be annexed in the style of "it suits us here, so here we go with it". For a specific piece of land, it must be clear why it is included, how it relates to the hunting boundary and whether the legal rules are met. The Supreme Administrative Court emphasizes the importance of the longest common border; where there are multiple possible solutions, the will of the owner may also be significant.

However, the decision deals with large parcels of hectares designated, for example, as enclaves or land needed to level the border. And this is where the important question that an ordinary person will ask immediately begins: Which specific land, why specifically and according to what calculation?

That's not meticulousness. Public power interferes with the rights of owners. And when the state does something, it is not enough to say that the solution "makes sense". It must be possible to check whether it complies with the law.

One of the participants and the land owners pointed out the problems in time before the decision was issued. It was not a general grumbling against hunting. In the submission from February 2026, he explicitly objected to the unclear identification of the documents, requested information on how earlier defects in the proposal were eliminated, pointed out the possible obsolescence of the land registry data and wanted to see the final maps, lists of owners, dimensions, consents and reasons for the annexation of individual plots of land. He also demanded that the authority actually address these objections before making a decision.

And what was the answer?

In principle: you could have come to look at the file.

But that's a bit like complaining about a restaurant bill because it doesn't have a price on it, and the waiter tells you that you were allowed to see the kitchen. Maybe yes. But you didn't get an answer to the question why the bill doesn't fit.

After all, administrative proceedings are not a game of "find it yourself in the book". The administrative body, the responsible official, must explain what it was based on and why it did not consider the fundamental objections to be justified. Otherwise, the participant's right to express himself becomes just a solemn formula on paper: Send comments, we will create them.

And then comes one of the most bizarre parts of the whole story – the photovoltaic power plant.

In the case of parcels 3108/9 and 3108/10, the authority explains that they are still hunting land, among other things, because the fencing allows the movement of small game and that game will be found there.

The reader almost imagines an official legal test: will the hare get under the fence? Yes? Great, we have a hunting lot.

But that's not how the law works.

The legal question is not whether a roe deer, a hare or a fox can appear somewhere. The legal question is whether a specific area, according to its real and legal nature, falls into the category of hunting or non-hunting land. The law also explicitly recognizes built-up land among non-blameable plots. Therefore, it was necessary to find out the true nature of the construction, the affected area and the legal regime of the land. The passage of game itself is not a paragraph.

Similarly, the reaction to another owner has a strange effect. The decision refers to Section 17(3) of the Act on Hunting as a provision allowing the owner to apply for the declaration of land as non-hunting. But this is regulated by paragraph 2. Paragraph 3 deals with the opposite case – the return of non-blameable land back to hunting land.

Okay, the paragraph number may be a typo. But right after that, the authority explains that the land would become indecent if it were fenced and built on. The law does not stipulate that either. Built-up land is a separate legal category. Published administrative jurisprudence already addressed this issue years ago.

This is no longer an unlucky number. The question is beginning to arise as to whether the authority correctly understood the legal test itself, which it was supposed to apply to specific plots of land.

And one more procedural question mark hangs over all of this. On February 19, 2026, the Office notified the participants of the opportunity to comment on the documents before issuing a decision. But subsequently, other submissions and other facts came, with which the final decision works. If, after this call, new substantial documents were added to the file and people were no longer given the opportunity to respond to the final state of the case, it may be a serious problem of the right to be heard.

At the same time, the administrative office should be the place where the citizen does not have to believe, but should have the opportunity to verify.

Hunting is not the enemy of property rights. The Constitutional Court said a long time ago that this is a legitimate public interest and the owner must tolerate certain restrictions under legal conditions. But the words "under legal conditions" are the essence of the whole thing. Public interest is not a magic formula to cover up a miscalculation, an unclear list of parcels or an outstanding objection.

The Dubnice case is therefore not a story about a few hunters and one disgruntled owner. It's much more interesting. It's a story about what happens when a citizen starts asking the office: Where are your numbers? What sources did you use? Why did you list my plot here? And why didn't you answer what I really asked?

It is then that the quality of public administration becomes known.

Not by the number of pages of the decision. Not according to the stamps. Not by the amount of parcel numbers.

But depending on whether, after reading the decision, there are still 53 hectares somewhere between Česká Lípa and Dubnica, about which no one has properly explained where they actually belong.

Resources

1. City Hall Česká Lípa (2026).Decision of 12 August 2026, no. MUCL/123632/2026, file no. No. MUCL/997/2023/PODJ, in the matter of recognition of the Dubnice Community Hunting Association and registration of the Dubnice Hunting Association. Česká Lípa: Česká Lípa Municipal Office, Department of the Environment.

2. Czech Republic (2001).Act No. 449/2001 Coll., on hunting, as amended. Collection of laws of the Czech Republic.

3. Supreme Administrative Court (2017).Judgment of 27 April 2017, No. 2 As 169/2016-49. Collection of decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court, No. 3653/2017. Brno: Supreme Administrative Court.

4. Regional Court in Ostrava (2007).Judgment of 25 April 2007, No. 22 Ca 442/2004-56. Collection of decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court, No. 1310/2007.

5. Constitutional Court (2006).Finding of 13/12/2006, file no. stamp Pl. ÚS 34/03. Collection of laws, No. 49/2007 Coll.; Collection of findings and resolutions of the Constitutional Court, N 226/43 SbNU 541. Brno: Constitutional Court