By: Martina Šumavská, Marie Mandíková
May 6, 2025 5 min read
The Supreme Administrative Court (“SAC”) recently ruled in a case brought by the complainant O. K. against the Ministry of the Interior[1]. The subject of the dispute was the decision of the Ministry of the Interior not to accept the submitted future employment contract as a sufficient basis for a change of employer in the case of the complainant as an employee card holder. The conclusions of the SAC bring positive news for both employees and employers who find themselves in a similar situation and represent an important interpretative opinion for administrative authorities on the formalities of a future contract submitted in administrative proceedings.
The complainant submitted a future contract agreement with the notification of the change of employer pursuant to Section 42g(8) of the Act on the Residence of Foreign Nationals. The contract was signed by the complainant as a prospective employee and stamped with the seal of the prospective employer. However, the Ministry of the Interior considered the contract invalid because it lacked the employer’s signature. For this reason, the Ministry decided that the conditions set out in Section 42g(7) and (8) of the Act on the Residence of Foreign Nationals were not met.
The complainant brought an action against this decision before the Municipal Court in Prague, but the court dismissed the action on the grounds that the signature of the person acting is required for the validity of a legal act in writing. Referring to the case law of the Supreme Court – concerning the validity of a notice of termination of employment bearing only the employer’s stamp without a handwritten signature – the Municipal Court concluded that, in view of the importance and significance of the written employment contract, the future employment contract should bear the employer’s signature, which cannot be replaced by a mechanical means in the form of a stamp.
First of all, the SAC stated that, unlike the contract of employment itself, a future contract may be made in a manner other than in writing, as the Civil Code does not stipulate a mandatory written form. The requirement for the form of the contract cannot be inferred from the requirements for the form of the contract to be concluded on the basis of the future contract.
The SAC also emphasized the principle of protection of the weaker party to the contract, which in the case of an employment relationship is the employee. Pursuant to Section 19(3) of the Labour Code, the invalidity of a legal act cannot be attributed to the employee unless the invalidity was caused solely by him or her. Since the contract is a bilateral legal transaction, it cannot be inferred that the nullity can be attributed to reasons exclusively on the part of the employee. Therefore, the SAC concluded that in this case, the interpretation more favourable to the employee should be maintained and the validity of the submitted contract should be upheld.
Therefore, in the opinion of the SAC, the Ministry of the Interior should have assessed, in the light of the above, whether the submitted documentation constituted sufficient evidence of having entered in a future employment contract as required by the Act on the Residence of Foreign Nationals. The fact that the contract did not meet the formal characteristics of a written legal act does not in itself constitute a failure to comply with the legal requirements.
For the above reasons, the SAC annulled the judgment of the Municipal Court in Prague and the decision of the Ministry of the Interior and returned the case for further proceedings.
In the present case, the Supreme Administrative Court emphasized the obligation of the administrative authority to thoroughly assess whether the submitted documents fulfil the statutory requirements and rejected an extensive interpretation of the statutory provisions leading to excessive formalism. We cannot but welcome the conclusions of the SAC and hope that the above principle will be applied by administrative authorities in the future, not only in administrative proceedings under the law on foreigner nationals.
[1] Judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court, No. 2 Azs 40/2024-33 of 23 January 2025
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