Recent Problems in Mining and Prospecting Law

The state-of-the art of the present mining and prospecting Czech Law are analysed in the second and third part of the paper, respectively. Attention is paid to a recent decision of the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic, assigning the ownership of a quarry to the owner of the mineral deposit, which is the State in the case of the reserved minerals. The decision raises some new problems concerning the transition of the ownership from the land-owner to the owner of the deposit and vice versa.

The prospecting law has been a relatively independent branch of the Czech law since 1988. However, the physical boundary between the geological prospecting and the mining activities is not obvious. Several shortcomings in the law in force are discussed, relating mainly to the environmental impact of the geological prospecting.