Supreme Administrative Court confirms legitimacy of lawsuit filed by WEEE collection system operator against Ministry of Environment

The applicable legislation breaks electrical devices down into 10 categories as per their type. The collection of these devices differs depending on whether the devices are household devices and whether they are historical devices. The Ministry of Environment decided to assign one collection system to each category of historical household devices. Such system was then registered in the List for the purpose of ensuring the financing of the disposal and handling of historical electrical devices.

In 2005, REMA Systém, a.s. filed an application to register as an administrator and a party in charge of managing the funds to finance the disposal and handling of historical household electrical devices within class 3. The Ministry of Environment dismissed the application and the Minister himself confirmed the dismissal in 2006. Kocián Šolc Balaštík, as the legal counsel of REMA Systém, a.s., filed an administrative lawsuit with the Municipal Court in Prague against the Ministry of Environment’s decision, in which it challenged the unlawful nature of the dismissal. The lawsuit was based upon both procedural defects, in which the parties to the proceedings were designated wrongly, and a lack of justification.

The Municipal Court in Prague cancelled the decision by the Minister of Environment in 2009 and returned the case to the Minister for further proceedings. The Minister as well as the competing collection system and certain electrical device manufacturers represented by the system filed objections against the Municipal Court’s judgment. The Supreme Administrative Court, however, dismissed the Minister’s objection and denied the other objections.

In the reasoning and justification section of the judgment, the Supreme Administrative Court fully agreed with the Municipal Court’s reasoning and set forth that the Ministry of Environment failed to conduct a single set of proceedings in respect of all applications for listing in the List of manufacturers of electrical devices that are to be in charge of ensuring the financing of the disposal and handling of historical electrical devices for a particular class pursuant to which it committed a gross default on the proceedings that could have resulted in an illegal decision on the very merits of the case. The Supreme Administrative Court further agreed that the Minister’s contested decision was unreviewable due to the lack of grounds which constitute the grounds for the dismissal thereof.