General information

The Supreme Administrative Court is the supreme jurisdiction dealing with matters in the jurisdiction of administrative courts. Administrative courts, in general, protect public subjective rights (droits publics subjectifs, subjektiv-öffentliche Rechte) of natural and legal persons (in procedures dealing with actions against the decisions of administrative authorities), which is supplemented by protection against failure of administrative authorities to act and protection from unlawful interference, instruction and coercion from administrative authorities. Apart from that, regional courts deal with some disputes in an election and local referenda matters and violations of public officials' duties set by the Act on Conflict of Interest.

The Supreme Administrative Court has, in a particular jurisdiction, to decide on cassation complaints against the decisions of regional courts on actions and petitions dealing with the protection of public subjective rights. Moreover, it deals in the first instance with some specific fields of law, such as election matters, dissolution of political parties and political movements, suspension and resumption of their activity, and positive and negative jurisdiction conflicts between public administration authorities. The Supreme Administrative Court has the competence to decide on cassation complaints against regional courts' decisions regarding the annulment of measures of general nature or parts of these measures and matters of a local and regional referendum. The Supreme Administrative Court has become a disciplinary court for judges, state prosecutors, and enforcement agents.

The Supreme Administrative Court works in three, six, seven, and nine-member chambers. A presiding judge may issue simple procedural decisions. All the judges meet at the Plenary session, which decides on the number of court divisions upon a proposal from the President. The plenary session abolished the so-called collegiate division in 2014.

To ensure unity of judicial decision-making, the Supreme Administrative Court publishes the Court Reports of the Supreme Administrative Court (Sbírka rozhodnutí Nejvyššího správního soudu) after a discussion in the plenary session. These reports contain the Supreme Administrative Court's selected decisions, decisions of regional courts on administrative matters, and two special non-procedural instruments, which ensure unity and lawfulness of decisions made by administrative authorities and administrative courts. One of the instruments is a particular 'legal position' adopted by the Plenary. The second one is the ruling of an exemplary nature adopted by the Supreme Administrative Court's extended chamber in the field of administrative decision-making.

The Supreme Administrative Court is a member of the Association of the Councils of State and Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions of the European Union (ACA-Europe) and of the International Association of Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions (IASAJ).