Legal Assessment of the Slovak Administrative Court Decision on Property Restitution and Compliance with EU Law

Korom, Ágoston and Szuchy, Róbert (2025) Legal Assessment of the Slovak Administrative Court Decision on Property Restitution and Compliance with EU Law. GLOSSA IURIDICA, 12 (3-4). pp. 109-119. ISSN 2064-6887

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Abstract

This article examines a 2024 decision of a Slovak administrative court concerning the restitution of property confiscated during the socialist era, assessing its compliance with European Union law. In principle, EU law does not oblige Member States to restore properties expropriated before EU accession, nor does it set specific conditions for any such restitution.1 However, if a Member State chooses to implement property restitution measures after joining the EU, it must respect the free movement of capital and the prohibition of nationality-based discrimination.2 The Slovak Republic’s Act No. 503/2003 on the Restitution of Agricultural Property imposed a Slovak nationality requirement for claimants, which appears to conflict with those EU principles. The case analysed here involves a claimant whose restitution application – filed after Slovakia’s 2004 EU accession – was rejected in 2007 for failure to meet the nationality criterion. Subsequent to the Kühne & Heitz doctrine developed by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), Slovak legislation allowed final decisions that breached EU law to be reopened without a time limit. In its 2024 ruling, the Bratislava Administrative Court applied a stricter time limitation than the EU case-law would suggest, effectively counting the deadline from the publication date of the relevant CJEU judgment in the Official Journal rather than from the claimant’s awareness of that judgment. This article evaluates whether the Slovak court’s approach – aimed at safeguarding legal certainty – complies with EU law requirements, or whether it unduly impairs the effective enforcement of EU-law rights.

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