Remedies against decisions of administrative courts

The Code of Administrative Justice creates a one instance system of judicial review, i.e. regional courts acting as courts of the first and last instance with no appeal or other ordinary judicial remedy being permissible. There is, however, the possibility of filing and extraordinary remedy – the cassation complaint – before the Supreme Administrative Court.

It should be noted that, albeit designed as an extraordinary remedy, i.e. a remedy against the final decision of a court of the first instance, the admissibility criteria for a cassation complaint before the Supreme Administrative Court are defined quite broadly (as stated in section 102 and following of the Code of Administrative Justice). Cassation complaint lies against any final decision of a regional court in administrative matters, provided it is not expressly precluded by law. Both errors in the assessment of substantive legal provisions as well as errors in the procedure before the court of the first instance might be challenged. However, cassation complaint must invoke one of the grounds of cassation listed in section 103 of the Code of Administrative Justice.

The cassation complaint must be filed within two weeks of the regional court's decision becoming final. A complainant before the Supreme Administrative Court must be represented by an attorney. As a rule, the Supreme Administrative Court decides on a cassation complaint without an oral hearing. On the other hand, hearing might be ordered if further evidence is deemed necessary.

There is a second, in this case, genuinely extraordinary remedy: the reopening of proceedings (section 111 of the Court of Administrative Justice). Proceedings concluded by a final judgment might be reopened at request of one of the parties, if new evidence or facts have come to light and that this evidence was not or could not have been produced in the original proceedings without the requesting party's fault. Only proceedings concerning the protection against unlawful interference by an administrative authority and in matters concerning political parties and political movements may be reopened.

There are two stages of reopened proceedings. In the first stage, the party must petition the court for leave to reopen proceedings. Provided leave is granted, the merits of the previous case can be assessed anew and the court continues the original proceedings. The petition to reopen the proceedings must be submitted to the court within three months of the moment the party became aware of the ground for reopening (the "subjective" time limit), or within three years of the original decision becoming final (the "objective" time limit).