November 4, 2021

A novelty in the decision-making of the Constitutional Court in the area of citizenship

A novelty in the decision-making of the Constitutional Court in the area of citizenship

The Czech Constitutional Court upheld the constitutional complaint lodged by an attorney of our law firm Mgr. Pavol Kehl. The constitutional complaint was lodged against the decision of the Ministry of the Interior and the subsequent decision of the Minister of the Interior in the appeal proceedings rejecting the complainant’s application for citizenship of the Czech Republic. Ministry of Interior cited a threat to state security as the grounds for the rejection of application pursuant to Section 13(2) of Act No. 186/2013 Coll., on State Citizenship. According to the Act on State Citizenship, in cases where the Ministry of the Interior decides to reject an application on the grounds of a threat to state security based on an opinion provided by the Police of the Czech Republic or by Czech intelligence services, these opinions do not become part of the file and the Ministry of the Interior only states in its justification of the decision that the rejection was due to a threat to state security.

 

An applicant is thus not provided with a broader and more detailed justification as to why his/her application was rejected. Under normal circumstances, the applicant could use the possibility of the judicial review of the decision, and thus defend himself against the possible arbitrariness of administrative authority which, without providing any facts proving its claim about the threat of the particular applicant for the state security, rejected the application. However, according to Section 26 of the Act on State Citizenship, the judicial review is inadmissible in cases in which the Ministry of Interior rejected the application on the grounds of threat to the state security based on an opinion provided by the Police of the Czech Republic or by Czech intelligence services. Given legal regulation, concretely abovementioned Section 22(3), was challenged before the Constitutional Court in 2016. The Court ruled against the proposal to repeal the given Section. Furthermore, Section 26 of the Act was challenged a year later with the same result as the aforementioned challenge.

 

Last year, however, the Constitutional Court in its decision Pl. ÚS 22/20 ruled that although the exclusion of judicial review as such is in conformity with the Czech constitution, this does not mean that there is an exclusion for the review of decisions to reject an application issued by the Ministry of the Interior based on Section 13(2) by the Constitutional Court. An applicant, who had his/her application rejected on the grounds of threat to the national security, cannot defend himself against the decision before administrative courts, but he may file a constitutional complaint against the decision of the Ministry of Interior. This possibility serves as insurance against the possible arbitrariness of the Ministry of Interior and ensures the applicant´s right to a fair trial. In the finding of Pl. ÚS 22/20, however, the Constitutional Court ultimately concluded that, given the circumstances of the case, there was no interference with the rights guaranteed by the constitutional order and therefore rejected the constitutional complaint. In the light of this ruling, Mgr. Pavol Kehl, on behalf of the complainant, filed a constitutional complaint against the abovementioned decisions of the Ministry of the Interior and the Minister of the Interior.

 

In the proceedings on the constitutional complaint, the Constitutional Court, having taken into account opinions of Czech intelligence services based on which the refusal decision was issued, ruled that the information contained in the opinion could not, in fact, be qualified as classified, because the information was known to the applicant as well as publicly available. Therefore, there was no reason why the information should not be included in the grounds for the decision so that the applicant could familiarise herself with it and try to persuade the Minister of the Interior in any appeal that her request should be granted. For those reasons, the Constitutional Court upheld the constitutional complaint and repealed the decisions in question for their non-compliance with the right to a fair trial. Thus, the Ministry of Interior has to decide about the application again, however, this time, in case of rejection of the application, provide proper, reviewable and convincing reasoning.

 

The decision of the Constitutional Court from last week thus brings important assurance to all the applicants that in the Czech legal system there is a possibility of judicial review against the potential arbitrariness of the Ministry of the Interior.

 

If you are interested in more information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

 

Monika Rutland, partner

rutland & partners, law firm

monika.rutland@rutlands.cz

226 226 026

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