Pl. ÚS 6/25
The Constitutional Court has rejected the constitutional complaint lodged by the association Klimatická žaloba (Czech Climate Litigation) and other individuals. The complainants had chosen to pursue their claim through an “action against unlawful interference” under the Code of Administrative Justice. However, the respondent ministries – the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Transport – did not, in the manner specified in the complaint, violate the complainants' right to a favourable environment. The ministries were not the originators of the interference with fundamental rights as defined by the complainants. Achieving a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and attaining climate neutrality in the Czech Republic within approximately three decades requires that obligations be imposed on individuals through legislation. No such legislation currently exists, nor do the constitutional order, statutes, or EU law impose on ministries any duty to set mitigation measures. The administrative courts therefore did not err in rejecting the action against unlawful interference. The Constitutional Court deliberated in plenary session, considering the issue of the impacts of climate change on fundamental rights to be serious and of general societal importance. By its judgment, the Court did not close the door to future climate-related litigation, whether in the field of public or private law.
In 2021, the complainants (together with two other claimants) brought a climate action before the Municipal Court in Prague. Besides the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Transport, they also sued the Government of the Czech Republic. To protect their rights, they opted for an action against unlawful interference under the Code of Administrative Justice. The Municipal Court in Prague initially partially granted the action (while partly rejecting and dismissing it), but after intervention by the Supreme Administrative Court on cassation, it rejected the action in full. Both judgments were challenged by cassation complaints: on the first occasion, the Supreme Administrative Court partly quashed the Municipal Court's judgment (and partly rejected the cassation complaint), and on the second occasion it rejected the cassation complaint entirely. The second stage of the proceedings before the administrative courts concerned solely mitigation measures (aimed at reducing climate change). The first stage had also dealt with adaptation measures (responding to actual or expected climate change, including increasing the resilience of society and the landscape).
The complainants then turned to the Constitutional Court, challenging both decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court and the second judgment of the Municipal Court (insofar as it related to the ministries and mitigation measures). They argued that the administrative courts had failed to examine the autonomous normative content of the State's positive obligations in the area of climate protection, arising from the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. According to the complainants, the ministries' duty to take the specific steps defined in the complaint derives directly from the constitutional order, and in particular from the fundamental right to a favourable environment.
The Plenum of the Constitutional Court (Justice Rapporteur Veronika Křesťanová) rejected the complaint.
The complainants sought a declaration from the courts that the respondent ministries had interfered unlawfully by failing to determine for themselves specific mitigation measures that would lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The individual claims differed only in the degree of specificity or the method of determining the extent of the required reductions. At the same time, the complainants requested that the courts prohibit the respondent ministries from continuing to violate their right to a favourable environment.
The key question in the case was thus whether the respondent ministries themselves bore the duty (or obligation) arising from the complainants' fundamental right to a favourable environment. The Constitutional Court concluded that the respondent ministries could not be the originators of the unlawful interference as defined by the complainants in their action. Since the ministries were not the source of such interference (and therefore had not caused the contested interference), they could not desist from it, nor could they provide the complainants with the relief sought in the action under the Code of Administrative Justice. The administrative courts therefore did not err in refusing the complainants' claims.
At present, there is no statutory framework in the Czech Republic implementing the right to a favourable environment that would impose on ministries the duty to determine specific mitigation measures to reduce emissions. This absence of a “climate law” or comparable legislative framework was, in fact, one of the complainants' arguments. However, the ministries themselves lack the authority to enact such legislation – that power belongs to the legislature. Nor does the constitutional order establish an obligation requiring the ministries to take the measures sought in the complaint, and neither does EU law. Were an administrative court to uphold the complaint, it would in effect be creating a new duty for the ministries, which is incompatible with the nature of an action against unlawful interference, a remedy designed to address the breach of an existing obligation.
Unlike the European Court of Human Rights, which in the context of climate change assessed the fulfilment of the State's duties as a whole, the Constitutional Court (in line with the procedural strategy chosen by the complainants) considered only the contested acts of the ministries. The ministries, however, cannot be held responsible for failing to adopt mitigation measures when they have no legal basis (or constitutionally imposed duty) to do so.
The Constitutional Court does not dispute the existence of anthropogenic climate change, nor the urgency of the need to respond to it – and neither did the courts below. The Plenum of the Constitutional Court could, however, consider only those issues that were admissible in proceedings before the administrative courts, within the confines of the procedural framework chosen by the complainants. Given the nature of administrative proceedings and the complainants' litigation strategy, the judgment of the Constitutional Court does not address broader questions, such as whether the Czech Republic as a whole is taking sufficient measures to combat climate change and its effects. Nonetheless, achieving a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and attaining climate neutrality within approximately three decades will require that obligations be imposed on individuals – and such obligations may only be imposed by law.
By today's decision, the Constitutional Court does not in any way prejudge the possible success of other types of actions or climate-related litigation, whether in the field of public or private law. It deliberately confined itself to examining the contested interference at issue, within the limits of the procedural approach chosen by the complainants.