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The German state of Saxony has requested the temporary introduction of border controls with the Czech Republic and Poland. German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz agreed at a meeting with regional government leaders on Wednesday that Germany could introduce border controls with its neighbours depending on the migration situation. The Saxon Minister for Federal Affairs told the DPA agency on Thursday morning that he expects the negotiations with the German Ministry of the Interior, which is responsible for the policing and security of the country's borders, to be quick.

Germany temporarily reintroduced checks on its border with Austria in 2015, which it has extended at regular intervals since then. Some migrants therefore choose to come to Germany via Czechia and Poland to avoid checks at the German-Austrian border.

Wednesday is expected to be overcast, although no rain is predicted. Daytime temperatures should range between 13 and 18 degrees Celsius.

President Pavel wants to award the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk to Zdena Mašínová, daughter of the executed anti-Nazi resistance fighter Josef Mašín, at a state awards ceremony on October 28, Czech news server Aktuálně.cz reported on Wednesday. This state honour is awarded by the president to people who have contributed to the development of democracy and human rights.

Mašínová is still debating whether to accept the award, saying that her family fought against totalitarian regimes because they saw it as a duty, not because they wanted to receive awards.

According to Aktuálně.cz, the 89-year-old Mašínová was surprised by a visit from President Petr Pavel last week, during which he told her that he wanted to present her with the award.

Last year, former president Miloš Zeman posthumously awarded Zdena's father, Josef Mašín, who was a member of the resistance group Tři Králové during World War II, with a state honour, but Mašínová refused to accept the award from him, so defence minister Černochová represented her at the ceremony. However, she told Aktuálně.cz that she would accept the award from Mr Pavel.

Mašínová is also the sister of Ctirad and Josef Mašín, the brothers who put up armed resistance against the communist regime. While they escaped to West Berlin in the 1950s and never returned to the Czech Republic, Zdena stayed in the country and was persecuted by the regime until the revolution.

The Supreme Court has overturned a ruling against an official who granted Czechoslovak citizenship to Josefina Czerninová, a countess who left Czechoslovakia in 1945, opening the way for her descendants to successfully claim restitution of her former land and property. The Supreme Court ruled that the conclusion that the official had behaved negligently was in extreme contradiction with the factual findings of the case, and also objected to the criminal prosecution of officials simply for arriving at a legal opinion contrary to the one the prosecutors would have liked.

Czerninová, who came from the Schwarzenberg family, left Czechoslovakia in 1945, and was subsequently deprived of her property by the Beneš Decrees. In 1999, the authorities posthumously issued Czerninová a Czechoslovak citizenship certificate, ruling that she had been a citizen of Czechoslovakia at the time of her death in 1965. As a result, her descendants were able to reclaim millions of square metres of forest and other real estate in southern and western Bohemia, including a castle in the Karlovy Vary region.

In 2013, Ivana Odarčenková, one of the officials who made the decision to issue Czerninová a citizenship certificate, was handed a one-day prison sentence, suspended for one year, for negligence and mishandling of the task of a public official. In her appeal, Ms. Odarčenková stated that the goal of the criminal proceedings had clearly been to annul the decision taken on Czerninová's citizenship in order to re-assert the state's property interests.