Právo a spravodlivosť v spore o chomutovské exekúcie

Abstract

At the beginning of year 2009, the mununicipality of the north-bohemian town of Chomutov announced the introduction of distrainment of social benefits as a method of disciplining its notorious debtors. The framing of the policy was ambivalent from the very start: "the debtors" as a group were on one hand blamed for not paying their rents in municipal flats, at the same time, however, they were portrayed as in fact much more than defaultors – as unadaptable violators of the "decent people’s order". The launching of the policy in February 2009 triggered a heated and widely medialized debate on the legal aspects of the practice, whereby two conflicting discourses of legitimity met in confrontation. This article attempts a critical discoursive analysis of the discourse of "unadaptables" (represented by the mayor of Chomutov, Ivana Řápková) and, in complement, of the discourse of "constitutional rights" (represented by the Ministry of Minorities and Human Righst, Michael Kocáb, and Ombudsman, Otakar Motejl). The analytical focus is on radio and newspaper interviews with these three prominent figures within the timespan of the first three months of the controversy. Employing categorization analysis, analysis of positioning and select lexical and rhetorical aspects, the first part offers a detailed description of Řápková’s majority discourse. In the second part, a complementary analysis of the discourse of her critics follows. Finally, a synthesis of the findings aims for a comparative perspective of the controversy. It attempts to show how different framing strategies (local issue with individual characteristics vs. general social issue with collective dimensions) cause the opposing sides to effectively fail to meet in a constructive dialogue on possible solutions of the problem.