CYIL 2014

425

STATE IMMUNITY IN JURISPRUDENCE OF CZECH COURTS

or persons, industrial or intellectual property, or participation in business

companies; that is, substantially in the cases in which the State does not act as

the executor of public authority (acta iure imperii). In a case where the States

act “as ordinary subjects of civil-law relationships regulated by the rules of

international private law” … it is appropriate, considering the nature of the

matter, that the scope of privileges and immunities of the State reflects the fact

of a State not acting as the public authority. In the matter under consideration,

this means that in a case where a State acts not as a sovereign bearer of public

authority, but as a juridical person in matters deriving from individual labor

relationships characterized by the legal equality of their participants, the rules

of international law justify the conclusion that this juridical person – the

foreign State – does not enjoy functional immunity, and that Czech courts have

jurisdiction in these matters.”

2.2 The Denied Entrance in the Austrian Cultural Forum Case

Three years later, the Czech Supreme Court heard another State immunity case.

In that case, the plaintiff, a private individual, filed a petition for the protection of

personality rights against the Republic of Austria for preventing him from attending

a literary reading organized by the Austrian Cultural Forum in Prague; the plaintiff

demanded a written apology. The lower courts discontinued the proceedings for

lack of jurisdiction, holding that the Republic of Austria enjoyed immunity from

jurisdiction of Czech courts.

The plaintiff filed an extraordinary appeal with the

Supreme Court. He referred to the holding in the Polish Embassy Driver case and

argued that Austria in his case did not act as a sovereign bearer of public authority,

but as a juridical person acting in a legal relationship (arising out of an infringement

on his personality rights) characterized by the legal equality of its participants. As

such, Austria did not enjoy immunity within the meaning of “functional immunity”.

The Supreme Court decided in favor of the plaintiff, concluding that the

extraordinary appeal was well-founded. It annulled the rulings of the lower courts

and remanded the case to the court of first instance for further proceedings.

The

Supreme Court first confirmed that the potential attachment of State immunity must

be assessed on the basis of general international law, as Czech law did not specify the

content of a foreign State’s immunity in the Czech Republic. The Court subsequently

repeated verbatim the above quoted exposition on the limited, functional nature of

Ruling of the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic dated 24March 2011, case No. 30 Cdo 2594/2009.

An English-language report of the case, prepared by the present author, was published in 150 ILR 623.

For ease of reference, the case is referred to in this text as the “Denied Entrance in the Austrian Cultural

Forum Case”.

Ruling of the Municipal Court in Prague dated 12 May 2008, No. 32 C 259/2007-9 and ruling of the

High Court in Prague dated 20 November 2008, No. Co 248/2008-13.

The case, however, did not go any further as the petition was dismissed due to the plaintiff’s failure to

pay court fees. Ruling of the Municipal Court in Prague dated 6 June 2012, No. 32C 66/2011-45 (on

file with the author).