Dusan Soltes v. Czech Republic

October – 3 November 2005

Between 1985 and 1989, the author worked as a United Nations (UN) Expert at the P5 level for the UN Department of Technical Cooperation for Development (UNDTCD) in Burma. Over that period, he claims to have been forced to pay a total of US$42,000 from his UN earnings to Polytechna Prague, a specialized recruitment agency for international organizations of the Czechoslovak government which allegedly covertly extracted taxes from its citizens’ non-taxable UN income, in contravention of the domestic laws and the UN Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations (“the UN Convention”), a Convention to which Czechoslovakia was a party since 1955. In order to obtain an exit-visa and be permitted to take up his UN employment, the author allegedly had to sign a secret “pre-contract” with Polytechna on 30 April 1985; he was forbidden from disclosing its contents to third parties, least of all to his UN employers. The Czechoslovak Embassy in Burma monitored the payments he made.

As a result of political changes in Czechoslovakia since November 1989, in a letter addressed to the author on 2 January 1990, Polytechna allegedly admitted its wrongdoing and offered to negotiate amicable settlements with all former UN personnel affected. However, it did not respond to the author’s repeated requests seeking such a settlement.

On 26 May 1992, the author filed a civil claim for damages in the Prague District Court (Obvodny sud) against Polytechna. In a hearing held on 12 May 1993, the Court claimed difficulty understanding the author’s Slovak language (though it was one of the two official languages until 31 December 1993) but did not provide the author with an interpreter. It allegedly questioned whether the author was covered by the UN Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations. The District Court ruled against him, supposedly basing its judgement exclusively on Polytechna’s arguments. It concluded that the author’s payments to Polytechna were “voluntary contributions” for its mediation services in recruiting him to the UN, although the author had received a direct job offer from the UN.

On 14 September 1993, the author appealed to the Prague Municipal Court (Mestsky sud). Without a hearing or a request for supplementary evidence, the Municipal Court upheld the decision of the District Court on 10 December 1993, stating that no further appeal was available.

The author nonetheless appealed to the Supreme Court (Najvyssi sud) on 1 March 1994. On 7 March 1996, the Supreme Court rejected his request and confirmed the Municipal Court’s decision that its ruling was “final”. According to the author, as with the Municipal Court, he was not called to the Supreme Court hearing, nor was he invited to present further evidence.

The author did not bring his claim before the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic allegedly because neither he, nor his Slovakian lawyer, were informed about the existence of the Constitutional Court (which had just been constituted in Brno, Czech Republic), but was not yet fully operational.

The author submitted his claim to the European Commission of Human Rights (ECHR) on 17 October 1996 (Case No. 34194/96). The ECHR at first questioned the admissibility on the ground that the author had not appealed to the Constitutional Court but then accepted the author’s argument that he, as a foreigner, had not been informed of its existence. However, on 8 December 1997, the Commission declared the case inadmissible because its 6-month deadline for an appeal had lapsed.

By note of 18 November 2002, the Slovak Republic declined to comment either on the admissibility or merits of the complaint. First, it considered that only Czech courts were competent to receive the author’s claim, because the Polytechna was based in Prague. Second, any civil proceeding initiated before the entry into force of the Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance between the CSFR successor states (27 August 1993) was to be decided by the court of law to which it had originally been brought. Finally, the State party asserts that it cannot be held responsible for the alleged violation of the UN Convention which had supposedly taken place on the territory of, and had been caused by, the actions of a third state. The Slovak Republic thus sought the case against it to be dismissed ratione personae.

The Committee therefore decides: that the communications are inadmissible under article 2 and article 5, paragraph 2 b), of the Optional Protocol; that this decision shall be communicated to the author and to the authorities of the Czech Republic and the Republic of Slovakia. [Adopted in English, French and Spanish, the English text being the original version. Subsequently to be issued also in Arabic, Chinese and Russian as part of the Committee's annual report to the General Assembly.]