When Must an Authority Examine a Witness, and When Does an Inspection Record Suffice?

The State Labour Inspection Office brought a cassation complaint before the Supreme Administrative Court and succeeded. In its judgment, the regional court had asserted two contradictory things at once — and that is always a problem in law.

What the case was about in practice

The company STRALNET s.r.o. cooperated with Hortim-International, which runs a fruit and vegetable wholesale business in Brno. People from various companies worked in its halls sorting, packing and labelling goods. During a labour-inspectorate inspection in February 2022, two workers — Ms M. R. and Ms L. Z. — were identified on site, whose employers were the companies EKLEONA and SoltecConn.

The problem? These companies held no job-placement licence, yet their workers were in fact working for Hortim through the claimant, STRALNET. The labour inspectorate classified the whole situation as disguised job placement — a situation in which someone hires out labour without meeting the statutory conditions and masks it through, for example, contracts for work.

The claimant received a fine of CZK 160,000 and challenged it in court. It argued, among other things, that it had not been sufficiently proven where exactly the two workers were on the premises and what they were doing. It therefore proposed that they be examined as witnesses.

The regional court upheld the claimant and annulled the inspectorate's decision, holding that the authority should have examined both workers because their statements recorded during the inspection cannot replace proper witness testimony. Yet the court contradicted itself: in one place it described the workers' presence as „established beyond doubt“, while in another it stated that their presence and activity were „not supported by any other evidence“.

The Supreme Administrative Court did not accept this internal contradiction. It set the regional court's judgment aside and returned the case for fresh consideration.

What this means for practice

The decision offers several important pointers for anyone who may find themselves in a dispute with the supervisory authorities:

• Inspection records are not automatically full-value evidence. Statements made by people while cooperating with an inspection cannot, without more, substitute for witness testimony. If the accused disputes such statements and they are decisive for the finding of guilt, the authority must carry out a proper examination.
• But an examination is not always necessary. If other evidence exists — travel orders, attendance sheets or assignment records — the inspection records may merely supplement it. In that situation there is no need to prove every inspection statement by examination.
• The accused must say what the examination is meant to establish. If you propose examining a witness, you must specify what new information it could bring. A general assertion such as „I want to prove it was not as the authority says“ is not enough.
• A court must not be internally contradictory. If a court asserts in one part of its reasoning that something is proven and says the opposite elsewhere, its decision is unreviewable and must be set aside.

For businesses using external labour, this case is a warning. If your suppliers hold no proper job-placement licence and their workers in fact work under your direction on your premises, it may be you — as the one who enabled the disguised placement — who runs into trouble.

Formal contracts for work will not save the situation if the reality resembles the hiring-out of labour. The supervisory authorities assess the actual state of affairs, not merely what is written on paper. And, as this case shows, the taking of evidence in offence proceedings has clear rules — which both sides, including the courts, must observe.

Source: Supreme Administrative Court, 9 Ads 54/2025-42