They were issued by President Edvard Beneš from 21 July 1940 to 27 October 1945 and retroactively ratified by the Interim National Assembly of Czechoslovakia on 6 March 1946.

[3] Beneš and other Czechoslovak politicians blamed the national minorities (Hungarians and Germans) for the collapse of Czechoslovakia, which was why they wanted to create an ethnically homogeneous nation-state.

The president's power to enact decrees (as proposed by the government) remained in force until 27 October 1945, when the Interim National Assembly convened.

On ratification by the Interim National Assembly, they became binding laws with retroactive validity and attempted to preserve Czechoslovak legal order during the occupation.

[citation needed] The deportation, based on Article 12 of the Potsdam Agreement, was the outcome of negotiations between the Allied Control Council and the Czechoslovak government.

[13] Of the allies, the Soviet Union urged the United Kingdom and the U.S. to agree to the transfer[citation needed] of ethnic Germans and German-speaking Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Yugoslavs and Romanians into their zones of occupation.

[14] Most ethnic Germans of the Sudetenland, many of whom had wished their region to stay as part of Austria in 1919, failed to follow the mobilization order when Czechoslovakia was threatened with war by Hitler in 1938, crippling the army's defensive capabilities [citation needed].

In general, the decrees dealt with loss of citizenship and confiscation of the property of: The defining character in definition of the entities affected was their hostility to the Czechoslovak Republic and to the Czech and Slovak nations.

The hostility presumption was irrebuttable in case of entities in the Art.1(1), while it is rebuttable under Art.1(2) in case of physical persons of German or Hungarian ethnicity, i.e. that they were exempted under Decrees 33 (loss of citizenship), 100 (nationalization of large enterprises without remuneration) and 108 (expropriation) where they proved that they remained loyal to the Czechoslovak Republic, they had not committed an offense against the Czech and Slovak nation, and that they had either actively participated in the liberation of Czechoslovakia or were subjected to Nazi or fascist terror.

Some 250,000 Germans, some anti-fascists exempted under the Decrees and others considered crucial to industry [citation needed], remained in Czechoslovakia.

[18] After the Velvet Revolution Czechoslovakia also adopted Act 87/1991 Coll., providing restitution or compensation to victims of confiscation for political reasons during the Communist regime (25 February 1948 – 1 January 1990).

The law also provided for restitution or compensation to victims of racial persecution during World War II who are entitled by Decree 5/1945.

In the committee's view, this was discriminatory treatment of the plaintiff compared to those whose property was confiscated by Nazi authorities and not nationalized immediately after the war (and who, therefore, could benefit from the laws of 1991 and 1994).

According to the applicants, "after the Second World War, they were expelled from their homeland in genocidal circumstances", their property was confiscated by Czechoslovak authorities, the Czech Republic failed to suspend the Beneš Decrees and had not compensated them.

The court held that the expropriation took place long before the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights with respect to the Czech Republic.

It found that since the decree has fulfilled its purpose and has not produced legal effects for more than four decades, it may not be reviewed by the court for its adherence to the 1992 Czech constitution.

Although the Beneš decrees are a valid historical part of Slovak law, they can no longer create legal relationships and have been ineffective since 31 December 1991.

On 20 September 2007, the Slovak parliament adopted a resolution concerning the untouchability of postwar documents relating to conditions in Slovakia after World War II.

The resolution was originally proposed by the ultra-nationalist[25][26][27] Slovak National Party in response to the activities of Hungarian members of parliament and organizations in Hungary.

[28] The Beneš decrees were a significant talking point of the Hungarian extremist groups Magyar Gárda and Nemzeti Őrsereg, which became active in August 2007.

The resolution commemorated the victims of World War II, refused the principle of collective guilt, expressed a desire to stop the reopening of topics related to World War II in the context of European integration and declared a wish to build good relationships with Slovakia's neighbors.

[34] On February 12, 1991, the Slovak National Council formally apologized for postwar persecution of innocent Germans, rejecting the principle of collective guilt.

[citation needed] According to Radio Prague, since the decrees which dealt with the status and property of Germans, Hungarians and traitors have not been repealed they still affect political relations between the Czech Republic and Slovakia and Austria, Germany and Hungary.

On 28 December 1989, future Czechoslovak president Václav Havel, at that time a candidate, suggested that former inhabitants of the Sudetenland might apply for Czech nationality to reclaim their lost property.

[39] During the early 2000s, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel and Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber demanded that the Beneš decrees be repealed as a precondition for both countries' entrance to the European Union.

[40] In 2003 Liechtenstein, supported by Norway and Iceland, blocked an agreement about extending the European Economic Area because of the Beneš decrees and property disputes with the Czech Republic and (to a lesser extent) Slovakia.

[41] Prime Minister Miloš Zeman said that the Czechs would not consider repealing the decrees because of an underlying fear that doing so would open the door to demands for restitution.

[43] In 2010, when Masaryk University erected a statue to Edvard Beneš, local journalist Michael Kašparek criticized the move because of what he dubbed "Expel Them All, Let God Sort Them Out!"

[44] In January 2013 Karel Schwarzenberg, a conservative candidate in the 2013 Czech presidential election, said, "What we committed in 1945 would today be considered a grave violation of human rights, and the Czechoslovak government, along with President Beneš, would have found themselves in The Hague.