EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ACTION / Alla Tymofeyeva (ed.)

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X. Y. v. the CZECH REPUBLIC

α) The possibility to lodge an appeal against the decision of DD/MM/YY 25. The Applicant asserts that the above decision was not duly served on him. As the Government shall describe below, Section 24 of the Rules of Admin- istrative Procedure was followed when serving the decision, which was therefore served on the Applicant on DD/MM/YY. Since the Applicant did not lodge an appeal against the decision, it became final on DD/MM/YY (see the Prague Mu- nicipality ’s decision of DD/MM/YY). Therefore the Applicant deprived himself of the opportunity for a superior administrative authority, and then a court, to de- cide on the minor offence. 26. Nevertheless, even if we accepted the Applicant’s version that the dec i- sion of DD/MM/YY was not served on him, it is indubitable that he learned about its existence on DD/MM/YY at the latest when a decision of the Prague 1 District Court ordering the enforcement of the decision on the minor offence in question was served on him. 27. The fact that by that date at the latest the Applicant had not only been aware of the existence of the decision in question and of the obligation that the decision had imposed on him, but had also been aware of the type of proceedings within which it had been delivered and what it therefore concerned, is evident from the contents of his petition for the reopening of the proceedings of DD/MM/YY. In the petition he refers to his letter dated DD/MM/YY, in which he expressed his opinion on the factual circumstances of the case, and also to his statement on this matter, which he made before the Police of the Czech Republic. 28. It is therefore indubitable that on DD/MM/YY at the latest the Appli- cant knew that the decision in question had been delivered, what the decision con- cerned, and what consequences the decision had for him. Therefore, under the generally accepted interpretation of the Rules of Administrative Procedure the Applicant should have lodged an appeal against the decision in question rather than a petition for the reopening of the proceedings (see the Supreme Administra- tive Court’s judgment quoted in § 6 of these Observations, from which it is evi- dent that the interpretation of the Rules of Administrative Procedure held by it was not new at the time of its decision, but that it was an established, long-term interpretation; 1 similarly see also the Supreme Administrative Court’s judgment File Ref. 4 As 21/2006 – 52 of 16 March 2007). 1 The commentary on the Rules of Administrative Procedure of 1999, to which the Supreme Ad- ministrative Court refers, mentions, inter alia , the following on pages 45 and 46: “One of the most serious procedural shortcomings is the failure to notify a party to proceedings of a decision. There can be various reasons for that, for example, the administrative authority did not deal with the relevant person at all, because it did not consider the latter to be a party to the pro- ceedings (although the person was one under the law) and therefore it did not notify the latter of the decision, or it did not do so due to an omission or technical error. [ … ] … an act can cause the intended consequences only if it is notified to the person whom it concerns, or whose rights or obligations it affects. [ … ] A party can certainly claim service with the compe- tent administrative authority before that, or request a superior authority to intervene for t he party’s

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EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ACTION