"Constitutionally Conforming Interpretation"
        

HEADNOTES
The Constitutional Court recalls and reiterates that the tenor of its Judgment No. II. ÚS 405/02 
rests on the respect for the constitutional principle of equality, that is, the exclusion of 
unjustified inequality, in the given case, between citizens of the Czech Republic.  In a case in 
which a special incorporation clause, contained in § 61 of Act No. 155/1995 Sb., establishes the 
priority of a treaty over domestic law, where the application of law is governed by the 
interpretive principle, lex specialis derogat legi generali, as the Constitutional Court is not 
endowed with competence to review the constitutionality of ratified international agreements, 
this interpretive principle that specific rules take precedence over general rules must yield to 
the constitutional principle affecting the application and interpretation of the relevant ordinary 
law, that is, the principle of constitutionally conforming interpretation and application.  In the 
matter under consideration, this constitutional principle is the fundamental right flowing from 
the constitutional principle of the equality of citizens and excluding any unjustified legal 
distinctions drawn between them.
     To the extent that the Supreme Administrative Court in its judgment failed to reflect the 
constitutional interpretation set out in a Constitutional Court judgment, it violated the maxim 
arising from the sense and purpose of an effective and meaningful concentrated (specialized) 
constitutional judiciary, having a considerable function in unifying the jurisprudence in the 
area of constitutionally protected guarantees (the Constitutional Court itself may depart from a 
proposition of law declared in one of its judgments solely by means of the procedure initiated 
pursuant to § 23 of Act No. 182/1993 Sb), the maxim flowing from Art. 89 para. 2 of the 
Constitution, according to which enforceable decisions of the Constitutional Court are binding 
on all authorities and persons.  The failure on the part of a public authority to respect the 
proposition of law announced by the Constitutional Court amounts, in addition, to a violation 
of the principle of equality, and also offends against citizens' legal certainty (judgments Nos. II. 
ÚS 76/95, I. ÚS 70/96, III. ÚS 127/96, III. ÚS 187/98, III. ÚS 206/98, III. ÚS 648/2000 and 
others).  The stated admonition is also relevant for the position of the secondary party.  From 
Art. 89 para. 2 also flows the maxim that arbitrary interpretations of Constitutional Court 
judgments are prohibited.  This maxim applies fully to the legal opinion of the Czech 
Administration of Social Security contained in its pleading on the matter at issue and relating 
to the relevance and legal content of Constitutional Court Judgment No. II. ÚS 405/02.

JUDGMENT
On 25 January 2005, the Constitutional Court, in a panel composed of its chairperson, JUDr. Jiří 
Mucha, and Justices, JUDr. Pavel Holländer and JUDr. Jan Musil, in the matter of the constitutional 
complaint of A. W. . . . against the 19 February 2004 judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court, 
case no. 3 Ads 2/2003-60, rejecting on the merits the cassational complaint in the matter of the 
petition seeking the recognition of an "equalization adjustment" in the context of social security, has 
decided, as follows:
     The 19 February 2004 judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court, case no. 3 Ads 2/2003-60, 
is hereby quashed.


REASONING

I.
In a timely submitted constitutional complaint which contained no defects in respect of the other 
statutorily prescribed formal requirements, the complainant sought the annulment of the 19 February 
2004 judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court, file no. 3 Ads 2/2003-60.
     From the content of the file designated by the ordinary court as file no. 3 Ads 2/2003, as well as 
from the constitutional complaint, the following was ascertained:
     In the above-mentioned judgment, the Supreme Administrative Court rejected on the merits the 
complainant's cassational complaint against the 21 November 2001 judgment of the High Court in 
Olomouc, case no. 2 Cao 140/2001-38, which had, in her appeal, affirmed the 3 April 2001 judgment 
of the Regional Court in Ostrava, case no. 38 Ca 97/2000-24, which, in the complainant's remedial 
action against the 10 April 2000 decision by the Czech Social Security Administration, No. 435 729 
154, upheld that decision.  That latter decision had turned down the complainant's request to be 
granted an "equalizing adjustment", amounting to the difference between the old-age pension to 
which she would be entitled under the law of the Czech Republic, the state of which she is a citizen 
and where she has permanent residence, and the old-age pension paid by the Slovak Social Insurance 
Company pursuant to the Treaty on Social Security concluded between the Czech Republic and the 
Slovak Republic (published as No. 228/1993 Sb., hereinafter the "Treaty").
     In the reasoning of its judgment, the Supreme Administrative Court stated that, with reference to 
Art. 20 of the Treaty, the cassational complaint could not be granted, for that article provides that the 
pension time earned prior to the dissolution of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic is 
considered as pension time of that state party on whose territory the employer had its headquarters on 
the day of the dissolution of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic or most recently prior to that 
day.  On the basis of this construction of the legal rule, in conjunction with Art. 11 paras. 1, 2 of the 
Treaty, the party to the proceeding noted that in the given case, the fact that the state (Czech 
Republic) concluded an agreement on social insurance with another state is not to the detriment of the 
complainant's pension claims and does not curtail her statutory rights under Czech law.  It stated that 
the complainant thus acquired, in the sense of Art. 20 of the Treaty, insurance time in its entirety in 
the Slovak Republic and her claim to pension thus arose in the Slovak Republic, taking into account 
the insurance periods acquired in that state.  As regards, then, the complainant's request for an 
"equalizing adjustment", she could not be granted one, as there is no basis, either in statute or in the 
international agreement, to accord her one.  In connection therewith, the Supreme Administrative 
Court also did not credit the complainant's objection, according to which she acquired the insurance 
periods in the common state, that is, first the unitary and subsequently federal republic.
     In her constitutional complaint, the complainant emphasized that, in the years 1957-1992, her old-
age pension had been insured in accordance with laws falling within the competence of the 
Czechoslovak Republic (from 1960 the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, then the Czech and Slovak 
Federal Republic), and not on the basis of the national laws of the Czech or the Slovak republics, in 
which she accumulated only five years of insurance coverage.  She objects that she did not pay 
contributions to any Slovak old-age pension fund towards her future "Slovak pension", rather she 
made payments into the budget of the unitary, and subsequently the federal, state.  Had it not been for 
the Treaty, she would have become entitled to an old-age pension under the laws of the Czech 
Republic on 29 July 1999, when she reached the prescribed pension age (Act No. 155/1995 Sb., on 
Old-Age Pension Insurance).  In this way, the Treaty works to her detriment in relation to pension 
claims and curtails her legal rights under Czech law.  She considers the criteria chosen in Art. 20 of 
the Treaty to be absurd.
     The complainant agrees that the "equalization adjustment" is not some special benefit of the old-
age pension system.  In her view, however, the recognition of it follows from a consistent application 
of the principle that citizens should not be harmed by the conclusion of treaties on social matters.  
She is of the view that she must be ensured at least such level of pension as that to which, but for the 
Treaty, she would have been entitled under the laws of the State in which since 1997 she has held 
permanent residence, for she has fulfilled all the conditions laid down in the Czech Republic for the 
claim to a pension that is higher than that for which she qualified in the Slovak Republic.
     The complainant concluded the detailed and particularized objections by stating that the Supreme 
Administrative Court thus denied her the right, guaranteed by domestic law enactments, to old-age 
security, which, according to the Act on Old-Age Pensions, must be commensurate only to the 
acquired periods of employment (insurance) and actually acquired income, but may not be reduced 
due to the fact that the Czech Republic concluded a social agreement with another state.  She is of the 
view that the mentioned approach resulted in a violation of the principle of legal certainty, also in 
discrimination against her and in unequal treatment in comparison with other citizens, for she was 
demonstrably employed in the former Czechoslovakia and, under its laws, she was justified in 
expecting that the claims, resulting from this fact, for future old-age security was guaranteed to her 
by the state in which she permanently resided and which is a successor to "Czechoslovakia".  In 
substance she objects to a violation of the constitutional guarantees flowing from Art. 1 para. 1 of the 
Constitution of the Czech Republic (hereinafter "Constitution") and from Art. 1, Art. 3 para. 1, and 
Art. 30 para. 1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Basic Freedoms (hereinafter "Charter").  In 
support of her arguments, she refers also to the conclusions explicated in Constitutional Court 
judgment no. II. ÚS 405/02.
     At the Constitutional Court's request, pursuant to § 42 para. 4 and § 76 par. 2 of Act No. 182/1993 
Sb., as amended, on 8 June 2004 the Supreme Administrative Court in Brno expressed its views on 
the constitutional complaint at issue, in which the panel chairwoman recapitulated the conclusions 
stated in the contested decision, which she considers fair and correct.  In her statement of views, 
meanwhile, the panel chairperson in no way reacted to the reference to Constitutional Court judgment 
II. ÚS 405/02.  She is convinced that the decision issued by the Supreme Administrative Court was 
not in conflict with the fundamental rights of the law-based state and proposed that the Constitutional 
Court reject the constitutional complaint on the merits.
     At the Constitutional Court's request, pursuant to § 42 para. 4 and § 76 par. 2 of Act No. 182/1993 
Sb., as amended, on 7 January 2005 the Czech Social Security Administration also submitted its 
views on the constitutional complaint.  It stated that the Treaty at issue is a treaty under Art. 10 of the 
Constitution and that, by the Czech Republic's accession to the European Community, the mutual 
relations between the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic are governed by a basic enactment on 
the coordination of the systems of social security, which is Council Regulation (EEC) 1408/71, while 
Art. 20 of the Treaty was incorporated into Annex III of the Regulation and is a part of the Treaty on 
the Accession to the European Community.  The secondary party further states that the Regulation 
takes precedence not only over national statutes but also over international agreements (Art. 6) with 
the exception of the provisions of agreements which are expressly listed in Annex III to Regulation 
(EEC) 1408/71.  It further makes reference to unspecified decisions of the European Court of Justice, 
according to which provisions of treaties in the mentioned Annex take precedence over provisions of 
the Regulation, from which it inferred that Art. 20 of the Treaty must thus be applied when deciding 
on pensions in cases to which it applies.  If Art. 50 of the Regulation contains the institute of 
equalization, then, according to the legal opinion expressed in the statement of views of the Czech 
Social Security Administration, it does not apply to this case:  "According to the European Court of 
Justice this Article must be interpreted such the overall amount of the pension drawn by persons in 
their state of residence may not be lower than the minimum amount of pension provided for in these 
legal enactment", while "to equalize the sum of the Czech and Slovak pension paid out to persons 
with residence in the Czech Republic with the theoretical amount to which he would be entitled if all 
periods of insurance were assessed in accordance with Czech legal enactments, that would be in 
conflict with the conclusions of the European Court of Justice"
     In terms of constitutional law, the secondary party refers to Art. 41 in conjunction with Art. 30 
para. 1 of the Charter and observes that Constitutional Court judgment no. II. ÚS 405/02 "relates to 
the resolution of a specific pension matter and does not contain a comprehensive proposition of law, 
as to how to proceed when applying the Convention in other cases."
     On the basis of the mentioned grounds, the secondary parties expressed in their statement of views 
its conviction that the Supreme Administrative Court had not erred when decided on the matter at 
hand.
     Under § 44 para. 2 of Act No. 182/1993 Sb., as amended, the Constitutional Court may, with the 
consent of the parties, dispense with an oral hearing, if no further clarification of the matter can be 
expected therefrom.  Both parties, namely, the complainant in her 20 December 2004 submission and 
the party to the proceeding in its 23 December 2004 memorandum consented to dispensing with an 
oral hearing.  Despite an explicit request from the Constitutional Court (file for case no. III. ÚS 
252/04, no. l. 12), the secondary party did not give its views on dispensing with an oral hearing (§ 63 
of Act No. 182/1993 Sb. in conjunction with § 101 para. 4 of the Civil Procedure Code).  In view of 
the explicit, as well the presumed, consent to dispensing with an oral hearing, also in view of the fact 
that the Constitutional Court is of the view that further clarification of the matter cannot be expected 
from a hearing, the oral hearing was dispensed with in this matter.


II.
     The Constitutional Court is not at the summit of the system of ordinary courts and, in principle, is 
not empowered, without more, to intervene into those courts' decision-making, neither to interpret 
legal enactments, which as a rule falls entirely and above-all primarily within their exclusive 
jurisdiction.  This maxim gives way only in the case that those courts have overstepped the bounds of 
the framework of the constitutionally guaranteed basic human rights [Art. 83, Art. 87 para. 1, lit. d) of 
the Constitution], to the extent that it would be to the complainant's detriment, through even an 
extreme interpretation that does not conform to the legal order as a meaningful unit, thus discordant 
with the safeguards flowing from the Fifth Chapter of the Charter.
     It is not the main mission of the Constitutional Court to interpret legal enactments in the area of 
public administration, rather ex constitutione to protect the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the 
constitutional order.  In contrast thereto, as far as concerns the interpretation of ordinary law, it is 
precisely the Supreme Administrative Court which is the body competent to unify the case-law of 
administrative courts, for which purpose a mechanism is prescribed in § 12 of the Administrative 
Court Procedure Code (hereinafter "ACPC"), alternatively in § 17 and following of the ACPC.  
Naturally, in exercising this jurisdiction, this public authority is also obliged, first and foremost, to 
interpret the particular provisions of ordinary law always in light of the purpose and significance of 
the protection of constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights and basic freedoms (compare 
judgments nos. III. ÚS 139/98, III. ÚS 257/98, I. ÚS 315/99, II. ÚS 369/01, II. ÚS 523/02, III. ÚS 
26/03, and others).  Expressed in other terms, by this means it is not in any sense released from the 
imperative flowing from Art. 4 of the Constitution, as the protection of constitutionalism in a 
democratic, law-based state is not, and cannot be, solely the duty of the Constitutional Court, rather it 
must be the duty of the entire judiciary.  In this context, it is within the constitutional judiciary's 
possibilities to stress the most important issues, alternatively to rectify the most extreme excesses.
     In terms of the ordinary law that applies to the matter at hand and that is relevant for its 
constitutional assessment, it was necessary to consider the issue whether or not the Supreme 
Administrative Court, by concurring with the application to this case of Art. 11 paras. 1, 2 in 
conjunction with Art. 20 of the Treaty between the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic on Social 
Security, encroached upon the complainant's rights protected by the constitutional order.  The 
Constitutional Court has established such unjustified encroachment upon the complainant's 
fundamental rights did occur, which conclusion is in no respect modified by the consequences flowing 
for ordinary courts from Art. 95 para. 1 of the Constitution.
     As early as its judgment, no. Pl. ÚS 31/94, the Constitutional Court declared its acceptance of the 
internationally recognized principle that the ratification of international agreements does not affect the 
more favorable rights, protections, and conditions that are provided for under, and guaranteed by, the 
domestic legislation.
     Further, in its judgment no. II. ÚS 405/02 (published in The Constitutional Court of the Czech 
Republic:  Collection of Decisions and Rulings - Volume 30, Issue 1, Prague, C. H. Beck 2003), the 
Constitutional Court declared the following, within the ambit of the supporting grounds of decision 
generally applicable to the issue before it:  "The Czech and Slovak Republics came into being on 1 
January 1993 with the dissolution of the common Czechoslovak state.  That common state had a 
unitary system of old-age pensions so that, according to the law then in effect, it was entirely 
irrelevant in which part of the Czechoslovak state the citizen was employed, or where the employer 
had its headquarters.  Art. 1 of Constitutional Act of the Czech National Council, No. 4/1993 Coll., on 
Measures connected with the Dissolution of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, effected the 
reception of the legal order of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (hereinafter "CSFR") into 
Czech law in such a way that constitutional acts, statutes and other legal enactments of the CSFR valid 
and in effect in the Czech Republic on the day the CSFR was dissolved remained in effect.  Thus, the 
Czech Republic accepted, on the constitutional plane, the principle of the continuity of the legal order.  
The mentioned constitutional act of the Czech National Council forms a part of the constitutional 
order of the Czech Republic, in the sense of Art. 112 para. 1 of the Constitution.  Therefore, the period 
of employment for an employer with its headquarters in the Slovak part of the Czechoslovak state 
cannot be deemed ‚employment abroad'.  In light of the above-stated reasons, the Constitutional Court 
considers discriminatory, as not resting on ‚objective' and ‚reasonable' grounds, such a distinction 
between citizens of the Czech Republic which is based on the fiction according to which employment 
in the Slovak Republic of the then common Czechoslovak state (or the employer's headquarters) is 
deemed ‚employment abroad'."
     At the same time, the Constitutional Court also made reference in this judgment to the fact that "the 
bilateral social security convention with the Slovak Republic intrudes upon legal relations which arose 
and continued in being during the existence of the previous common state, at a time when 
Czechoslovak law, which was subsequently received into Czech law, was still in effect."  It 
emphasized that "the Czech Republic's international obligations towards the Slovak Republic, the 
effects of which extend back into the past and into the legal relations of their citizens, which arose and 
developed within Czechoslovakia and the Czechoslovak legal order, must respect certain 
constitutional limits."
     In this context and in view of the case it was then adjudicating, it accented the fact that, "while the 
common Czechoslovak state was still in existence, the complainant fulfilled the condition of a 
minimal number of years of insurance coverage required by § 31 para. 1 of Act No. 155/1995 Coll." 
and added that "the application of an international treaty on the basis of § 61 of the same statute 
cannot lead to the situation where the fulfillment of these conditions is retroactively negated.  That 
would conflict with the principle of legal certainty and of the foreseeability of law, which form the 
very foundations of the concept of the law-based state."
     Without the Constitutional Court in any way anticipating whether, as far as the merits of the 
matter are concerned, the complainant fulfills all requirements to qualify for an old-age pension under 
Czech legal enactments, the above-explicated conclusions also apply analogously to the full extent to 
the presently adjudicated case.
     The Constitutional Court merely recalls and reiterates that the tenor of its judgment no. II. ÚS 
405/02 rests on respect for the constitutional principle of equality, that is, the exclusion of unjustified 
inequality, in the given case among citizens of the Czech Republic. In a case in which a special 
incorporation clause, contained in § 61 of Act No. 155/1995 Coll., establishes the priority of a treaty 
over domestic law, where the application of law is governed by the interpretive principle, lex 
specialis derogat legi generali, since the Constitutional Court is not endowed with competence to 
review the constitutionality of ratified international agreements, this interpretive principle that 
specific rules take precedence over general ones must yield to the constitutional principle affecting 
the application and interpretation of the relevant ordinary law, that is, the principle that such law be 
interpreted and applied in a constitutionally conforming manner.  In the matter under consideration, 
the constitutional requirement at issue is the fundamental right flowing from the constitutional 
principle of the equality of citizens and the exclusion any unjustified legal distinctions drawn 
between them.
     To the extent that the Supreme Administrative Court failed in its judgment to reflect the 
constitutional interpretation set out in a Constitutional Court judgment, it violated the maxim arising 
from the sense and purpose of an effective and meaningful concentrated (specialized) constitutional 
judiciary, which has a considerable function in unifying the jurisprudence in the area of 
constitutionally protected guarantees (the Constitutional Court itself may depart from a proposition of 
law declared in one of its judgments solely by means of the procedure initiated pursuant to § 23 of 
Act No. 182/1993 Sb), the maxim flowing from Art. 89 para. 2 of the Constitution, according to 
which enforceable decisions of the Constitutional Court are binding on all authorities and persons.  
The failure on the part of a public authority to respect the proposition of law announced by the 
Constitutional Court in one of its judgments amounts, in addition, to a violation of the principle of 
equality, and also offends against citizens' legal certainty (judgments Nos. II. ÚS 76/95, I. ÚS 70/96, 
III. ÚS 127/96, III. ÚS 187/98, III. ÚS 206/98, III. ÚS 648/2000 and others).  The stated admonition 
is also relevant for the position of the secondary party.  From Art. 89 para. 2 of the Constitution also 
flows the maxim that arbitrary interpretations of Constitutional Court judgments are prohibited.  This 
maxim applies fully to the legal opinion of the Czech Social Security Administration contained in its 
pleading on the matter at issue and relating to the relevance and legal content of Constitutional Court 
Judgment No. II. ÚS 405/02.
     As a general matter, it can be stated of the binding nature of judicial case-law that a previously 
made interpretation should be the starting point for decision-making in subsequent cases of the same 
type, unless in a later case the deciding court finds sufficiently relevant reasons grounded on rational 
and persuasive arguments which in their totality more nearly conform to the legal order as a 
meaningful whole and thus speak for a change in the case-law.  This requirement results from the 
postulate of legal certainty, predictability of the law, the protection of justified reliance on the law (of 
legitimate expectations), and the principle of formal justice (equality).
     Among the attributes of a law-based state is ranked the principle of legal certainty and the further 
principle flowing therefrom of the protection of justified reliance on law, which as an attribute and 
precondition of the law-based state in itself implies above all the effective protection of rights of all 
legal subjects in like cases in the same manner and predictability in the way the state and its organs 
proceeds.
     It does not follow from the postulate of justified reliance in a given legal order and in the fact that 
public authorities will take an identical approach to factually and legally identical cases, where the 
subjects of rights hold the legitimate expectation that they will not be disappointed in their reliance, 
that the interpretation and application of law must be absolutely immutable, rather that, in respect of 
the specific circumstances of a case, such as objective development of societal conditions affecting the 
given factual situation (file no. IV. ÚS 200/96), any such change be foreseeable or, should it not be 
foreseeable at the time it is accomplished, that the change in interpretation be transparently 
substantiated and rest upon acceptable rational and objective grounds which naturally must also be 
responsive to the legal conclusion in the previous decisional practice regarding the asserted legal issue 
in question (file no. III. ÚS 470/97).  Solely a thought process that is transparently explicated in this 
way, warranting an independent court or judge in electing a divergent approach, excludes arbitrariness 
in the application of law, within the limits of the humanly possible.
     However, the Supreme Administrative Court judgment contested in the constitutional complaint 
lacks any sort of constitutional argumentation, much less one that could at least persuasively compete 
with the generally applicable thesis explicated in judgment no. II. ÚS 405/02.  In this context, the 
Constitutional Court adds that it had not overlooked the proposition of law explicated in the 6 
November 2003 judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court, no. Ads 15/2003-39 (published as 
no. 230 in the Collection of Decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court, No. 6/2004).  In this 
decision, the Court distinguished the cases on the grounds that the facts in Constitutional Court 
judgment no. II. ÚS 405/02 concerned "a claim to early retirement pension, which does not exist in 
Slovak law".  Lastly, it must be noted that not even in this judgment did the Supreme Administrative 
Court respect the ratio decidendi , that is, explicated and applied supporting legal rule (grounds of 
decision) upon which the statement of judgment rested in the case in question.
     To the extent that the secondary party advances an argument, in its statement of views, in reference 
to Council Regulation (EEC) 1408/71, such reference can only be designated as inapposite and 
inappropriate.  Pursuant to Art. 7 para. 2, lit. c) of the Regulation, as amended and supplemented, "this 
Regulation does not affect the obligations resulting from the provisions of the social security 
conventions listed in Annex II" (not Annex III, which corresponds to the already amended version).  It 
follows from the mentioned provisions that the relevant European law does not affect the problems 
associated with the evaluation of claims to social security of citizens of the Czech Republic whose 
employer, prior to 31 December 1992, had its headquarters in the Slovak Republic, then a part of the 
Czech and Slovak Federative Republic.  This conclusion results without more from Art. 2 of the 
Regulation, which defines the class of persons to whom the Regulation relates.
     Finally and merely as an obiter dictum in relation to the complainant's case, the Constitutional 
Court considers it appropriate to state that to the extent that a citizen fulfills all statutory conditions for 
the right to a pension to come into being, even without the existence of the Treaty, and that right 
would be higher than the right pursuant to the Treaty, it is up to the carrier of Czech pension insurance 
to ensure that a pensioner draws a payment in an amount corresponding to the higher claim pursuant 
to the domestic laws and to decide that the amount of pension drawn from the other party to the Treaty 
be brought up to the level of pension claimable pursuant to Czech laws.  At the same time it will bear 
in mind the amount of pension drawn in conformity with the Treaty from the other party to the Treaty 
such that it does not result in duplicitous drawing of two pensions of the same type granted for the 
same reasons from two different insurance carriers (similarly see the 5 September 1997 judgment of 
the High Court in Prague, file no. 3 Cao 12/96, published in Law and Employment [Právo a 
zaměstnání] No. 7-8/1998, Supplement, pp. III-VI).  This approach to the problem corresponds to the 
general conception of justice that results from the substantive conception of the law-based state.
        On a general plane in the context of the matter before it, the Constitutional Court draws 
attention to two further circumstances.
        In assessing applications for the conferral of Czech citizenship, it is the duty of the competent 
state body - the Ministry of the Interior - to ascertain any possible economic grounds motivating that 
application, and "the conferral of citizenship at the request of a citizen of a foreign state is an 
expression of unrestrained state sovereignty, it takes place in a sphere of absolute discretion" (the 29 
December 1997 ruling of the High Court in Prague, case no. 6 A 77/99).
        If Act No. 155/1995 Coll., as amended, allows for the assertion of claims arising under its 
terms without regard to citizenship, that is, linked to permanent residence, then from the perspective 
of constitutional law protection, the Constitutional Court considers as untenable inequality linked 
solely with a distinction between citizens of the Czech Republic in their social security claims not, 
however, in connection with further classes of natural persons.
        For the above-stated reasons, that is, in view of the violation of Art. 1 para. 1 and Art. 89 para. 
2 of the Constitution, and of Art. 1 and Art. 3 para. 1, in conjunction with Art. 30 para. 1, as well as 
Art. 36 para. 1, of the Charter, the Constitutional Court has quashed the 19 February 2004 judgment of 
the Supreme Administrative Court, case no. 3 Ads 2/2003-60 [§ 82 para. 1, para. 2 lit. a), and para. 3 
lit. a) of Act No. 182/1993 Sb., as amended].

Notice: Decisions of the Constitutional Court cannot be appealed.

Brno, 25 January 2005