KŠB succeeds in cassation complaint before the Supreme Administrative Court

In 2005, REMA Systém, a.s. (“REMA”) filed an application to be added to the list of producers of electrical equipment and registered as a party in charge of managing the funds to finance the disposal and handling of class 3 historical household electrical devices. The Ministry denied its application, a decision which was confirmed in 2006 by the Minister of the Environment. REMA then filed an administrative action with the Municipal Court in Prague against the resolution and was successful at all levels (i.e. also before the Supreme Administrative Court). REMA’s registration proceedings then returned in 2010 to the Ministry, which, however, failed to issue a new substantive decision.

For that reason, REMA filed an action with the Municipal Court in Prague in which it sought to have a deadline imposed on the Ministry for issuing a decision regarding its application. The Municipal Court in Prague denied the action for procedural reasons, stating that the deadline for filing an action for protection against a failure to act, which is one year following the date when the decision was to have been issued, had not been fulfilled and that missing such deadline cannot be forgiven.

REMA then filed a cassation complaint against the Municipal Court in Prague’s decision. In the complaint, it objected to what it considered an incorrect determination of the moment when the decision should have been issued. Arguments that were not presented before the Municipal Court in Prague had to be applied and therefore the Supreme Administrative Court had to consider whether so-called “innovations” with regard to the timely filing of an action are admissible.

The Supreme Administrative Court agreed with the arguments contained in the cassation complaint and issued a decision to cancel the Municipal Court in Prague’s resolution and returned the case thereto for further proceedings. The resolution is procedural, but with overlapping judicial powers, since in the judgment the Supreme Administrative Court commented on issues that have not yet been resolved through litigation. The Supreme Administrative Court also pointed out the Ministry’s unacceptable attitude, which instead of issuing a decision failed even to make a substantive decision within the required deadline as set forth by law and during the litigation. The Ministry only made procedural filings, in which it sought to deduce that the action in question was filed late.

The Municipal Court in Prague will now decide the merits of the case once again.