Pl. ÚS 4/2023
Pl. ÚS 15/22
Pl. ÚS 5/24
The reasons for freezing the salaries of judges were deemed constitutionally valid by the Court’s Plenum only in 2021. In the subsequent cases of salary restrictions in 2022 and 2024, the Court once again criticised the government and Parliament for enacting unconstitutional measures. However, in 2022, the severe economic situation caused by the war, extraordinarily high energy prices, and unprecedented inflation outweighed the judges’ demands to be reimbursed for the difference in salaries. These reasons for further, now permanent, restrictions on judges’ salaries are not present in the valid regulation for 2024 and subsequent years. Therefore, the Constitutional Court annulled the adopted regulation regarding judges’ salaries as unconstitutional. As a result, judges are entitled to back pay for the amounts withheld from 1 January 2024.
The salary and lump-sum compensation owed to judges are derived from a salary base. In 2021, 2022, and 2024, the legislature intervened in the determination of judges’ salaries, effectively limiting them. Only in 2023 did the legislature refrain from such interference. Consequently, a series of motions challenging the legal framework leading to salary restrictions and demanding its annulment reached the Constitutional Court. Courts of first instance are also handling actions from judges seeking salary matching.
The Constitutional Court divided the incoming motion into three groups according to the respective “periods” of salary restrictions. The Plenum addressed the restrictions for 2021 in the pilot case Pl. ÚS 4/2023 (Justice Rapporteur Jaromír Jirsa). The 2022 restrictions were addressed by the Plenum in case Pl. ÚS 15/22 (Justice Rapporteur Josef Baxa). Finally, the Plenum dealt with the judges’ salaries for 2024 and beyond under Pl. ÚS 5/24 (Justice Rapporteur Milan Hulmák). The Plenum considered and ruled on all motions simultaneously within the entire context, even though the cases are formally separate.
Since 1997, the Constitutional Court has addressed the issue of judges’ salaries restrictions fifteen times. No other legal regulation has been scrutinised for its constitutionality as frequently in the Court’s thirty-year history. The Constitutional Court has repeatedly expressed its views on the actions of the legislature and the executive power, hoping that any future necessary interventions in judges’ salaries would strictly adhere to constitutional requirements. Most of the assessed cases have shown this hope was in vain.
The extensive case law provides answers to the presented arguments about the unconstitutionality of the enacted laws. There are indeed limits to the legislature’s ability to interfere with judges’ salaries. However, judicial independence is one of the essential requirements of a democratic rule of law. The independence of judges declared by the Constitution and laws is primarily conditioned by their moral integrity and professional level, and it is also tied to adequate material security. Therefore, any interference with judges’ material security guaranteed by law must not be arbitrary but must be properly justified.
In the first case (Pl. ÚS 4/23), the Plenum rejected the motion to declare the salary freeze from 2021 to 31 January 2022 unconstitutional. The salary restrictions during the COVID-19 period were enacted through proper legislative means. The temporary salary restriction was justified by exceptional circumstances. The legislative intervention did not aim to limit or undermine judicial independence.
The year 2021 and the preceding period were deemed exceptional by the Constitutional Court. The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented event in modern Czech history, severely impacting society with significant economic consequences. During this time, the government adopted numerous extraordinary measures to protect lives and health, restricting several fundamental rights and freedoms and significantly affecting the social and economic life of the population. It is precisely in this period that the substantial element of judges’ solidarity with societal hardships emerges. Therefore, judges must also bear the burden of salary restrictions in solidarity with the rest of society. The legislative intervention did not affect the material security of judges to such an extent as to raise doubts about the legislature’s purposeful or arbitrary actions. The solidarity of judges in difficult times does not threaten their dignity or independence but rather strengthens the society’s trust in them.
In the second case concerning the period of 2022 (Pl. ÚS 15/22), the Constitutional Court found the salary freeze unconstitutional but concluded that judges would not receive back pay.
The legislature consciously enacted the 2022 salary freeze unconstitutionally, reducing judicial salaries to the levels of 2020–2021. The government and Parliament justified their action by citing an extraordinarily adverse economic situation requiring maximum savings. However, they did not substantiate the existence of such an exceptional situation nor attempt an economic analysis to justify the necessity and proportionality of the salary restriction. Conversely, publicly available sources indicated that the government did not save on other public sector salaries or its own expenses during the same period. Moreover, the government and Parliament did not consult the judiciary in advance. The law was passed under a state of legislative emergency, although the legal conditions for such state were not met.
Judges share the material fate of society. After all, the construction of the law, the so-called “salary automatism”, ensures that judges’ salaries are derived from the real and objective data of the average wage in the national economy from the year before the previous year compared to the year in which judges’ salaries are set. This ensures that judges “breathe” with society in both good and bad times. Judicial salaries are not untouchable. Situations may arise where it is necessary to disable the mechanism of salary automatism. These salaries can be subject to restrictions in difficult periods. However, the government and Parliament did not adhere to the conditions previously established by the Constitutional Court’s case law for intervening in judicial salaries for this period.
Nevertheless, the Constitutional Court could not overlook the subsequent developments in 2022. Between February and December 2022, the economic situation worsened, the energy crisis deepened, and the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a humanitarian crisis that the state and society had to address. Insisting on back pay for judges’ salaries during such a challenging period would not align with the judiciary’s role and mission. According to the Constitutional Court, under these circumstances, judges do not have a claim to back pay. The Constitutional Court emphasises that just as judges expect stability in their salary conditions, they are expected to demonstrate above-average personal and moral integrity. Therefore, judges may more readily be asked to tolerate an intervention in their salaries which, although not originally introduced in accordance with the requirements of the constitutional order, nevertheless, due to a later change of circumstances, concerned a period which was exceptionally difficult for the state and the majority of society. Demanding back pay for judges for this period, despite the hardships faced by society, would not align with the judiciary’s role and mission. Performance of the judiciary requires lasting and profound trust of the society, a “priceless” value necessitating constant effort from the judiciary to maintain and enhance it. The reasons the Constitutional Court ultimately found no claim for back pay are exclusively related to the changed circumstances post-restriction and not to the government’s and Parliament’s procedures during its adoption. Thus, this finding should not be seen as approving their actions. The guarantees associated with judicial independence should contribute to public trust in the judiciary. Inferring a claim for back pay for February to December 2022, a period of worsening economic, energy, and humanitarian crises, would hardly enhance public trust in the judiciary. Therefore, no claim for back pay is awarded for this period.
However, the Constitutional Court did consider the unconstitutionality of the salary restriction when assessing the subsequent restriction for 2024 (Pl. ÚS 5/24). Unconstitutional actions cannot yield benefits.
The legislature, at the government’s proposal, reduced the coefficient for calculating the salary base for judges from three times the average monthly gross wage to 2.822 times. Although “three times” is not an untouchable constitutional value, compelling arguments for its reduction were not presented to the Constitutional Court. The government and Parliament justified this permanent salary restriction for judges inconsistently with previous decision-making, did not attempt to substantiate the necessity or proportionality of the intervention, and did not consult the judiciary in advance. Therefore, the legislative intervention was unconstitutional, and the Constitutional Court annulled the contested provision. The annulled provision cannot be applied to judges from January 2024 onwards, entitling them to back pay for this period.
Justices Wintr and Fiala filed dissenting opinions in the 2022 and 2024 cases. Justices Šámal and Svatoň filed concurring opinions in the 2022 case.