When Will a Court Waive Your Fees and Move the Proceedings Closer to Home?

Court proceedings can be demanding both financially and logistically. But what should someone do who has no means to pay court fees and at the same time cannot attend the competent court because they care full-time for a close relative? In a recent decision, the Supreme Administrative Court showed that, in certain circumstances, it is willing to accommodate such a person even repeatedly.

The case concerned a claimant seeking protection against the inaction of the Czech Bar Association — specifically, proceedings on the designation of an attorney to provide free legal assistance. The competent court was the Municipal Court in Prague, but the claimant lives in Liberec and cares full-time for his mother, who is in dependency level IV — that is, fully dependent on the help of another person.

The claimant therefore asked for two things at once: exemption from the court fee for the motion to transfer the case to another court, and the transfer of the case to the Regional Court in Ústí nad Labem, which is significantly closer to his home than Prague.

Why the court granted the fee exemption

The court fee for a motion to transfer a case is CZK 1,000 — an amount that may seem trivial, but which for a person in a difficult financial situation is a real barrier to access to justice.

The claimant showed that his household consists only of a care allowance of CZK 27,000 and his mother's old-age pension of about CZK 14,600. From this he pays rent and utilities, but above all the costs of caring for his mother — paid care of nine hours a day at CZK 150 per hour comes to over CZK 40,000 a month. On top of that, he is repaying debts enforced through execution.

The Supreme Administrative Court held that the funds the claimant has available each month are essentially the same as his expenses, if not lower. It therefore granted him full exemption from court fees. Importantly, the court relied on previously submitted declarations of means, because only three months had passed since the last decision and the claimant declared that his situation had not changed.

Appropriate delegation: when caring for relatives prevents attendance at court

The second part of the decision concerned transferring the case to another court. Section 9(2) of the Code of Administrative Justice allows the Supreme Administrative Court to assign a case to a regional court other than the one with local jurisdiction if it is appropriate for the speed or economy of the proceedings, or for another important reason.

Full-time care of a fully dependent person is, according to settled case-law, precisely such an important reason. The claimant has cared for his mother since 2013 and repeatedly evidenced this by decisions of the Labour Office. His mother cannot manage nine or ten basic life needs, meaning she needs practically constant assistance.

The court took into account that arranging care for the mother during the journey to Prague and attendance at a hearing would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the claimant. It therefore assigned the case to the Regional Court in Ústí nad Labem, specifically its branch in Liberec, which is closest to the claimant.

Interestingly, the Czech Bar Association, as the defendant, pointed to the number of proceedings the claimant conducts and questioned whether he should repeatedly be granted the benefit of fee exemption or delegation. The court did not accept this argument, holding that a delegation once declared does not automatically apply to all future proceedings, but where the important reason persists, it is appropriate to grant the motion even repeatedly.

For businesses, an important lesson follows. Appropriate delegation may be useful not only for those caring for relatives, but generally where hearing a case at the locally competent court would impose a disproportionate burden — for example, where key witnesses or evidence are in another region, or where travelling to court would be considerably complicated for objective reasons.

Likewise, exemption from court fees is not reserved for those on the edge of poverty. The law requires a party to show that it lacks sufficient means, and the overall financial situation is assessed — income, expenses, assets and debts. Full exemption is exceptional and requires particularly serious reasons, but, as this case shows, the courts do grant it in justified cases.

The decision confirms that procedural rules must be interpreted with regard to the real-life situation of the parties, and that appropriate delegation is not merely a theoretical option but a functional tool that can ease access to justice for those in difficult personal circumstances.