diff --git a/bin/solaar b/bin/solaar
index 17cecc26..07ceeee9 100755
--- a/bin/solaar
+++ b/bin/solaar
@@ -24,20 +24,7 @@ def init_paths():
     import os.path
     import sys
 
-    # Python 3 might have problems converting back to UTF-8 in case of Unicode surrogates
-    decoded_path = None
-    try:
-        decoded_path = sys.path[0]
-        sys.path[0].encode(sys.getfilesystemencoding())
-
-    except UnicodeError:
-        sys.stderr.write(
-            "ERROR: Solaar cannot recognize encoding of filesystem path, "
-            "this may happen due to non UTF-8 characters in the pathname.\n"
-        )
-        sys.exit(1)
-
-    root = os.path.join(os.path.realpath(decoded_path), "..")
+    root = os.path.join(os.path.realpath(sys.path[0]), "..")
     prefix = os.path.normpath(root)
     src_lib = os.path.join(prefix, "lib")
     share_lib = os.path.join(prefix, "share", "solaar", "lib")