Headnotes:

I. The right to fair remuneration for work pursuant to Article 28 of the Czech Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms implies the right of every employee to be adequately remunerated for the time during which they performs work for the employer or is at the employer's disposal at the place designated by the employer, ready to intervene immediately. Unpaid rest time, on the other hand, can only be such time when the employee is free to use such time as he or she wishes, i.e., to take time off and not to leave the employer during that time.

II. The failure of the Court of Appeal to submit a request for a preliminary ruling is not in itself a violation of Article 36 para. 1 of the Czech Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. However, the following arbitrary procedure of the Supreme Court who ruled contrary to the settled interpretation of the issue by the CJEU, without initiating the preliminary ruling procedure, resulted in such a violation.

Summary:

I. The complainant worked for his former employer, Ostrava Airport, as a firefighter. His work included an obligation to intervene in the event of a fire within 3 minutes at the latest, even at the most remote location of the airport and even during scheduled meal and rest breaks. After the termination of his employment, the applicant sought before lower courts compensation for the untaken rest breaks. The complainant initially succeeded before the Regional Court in Ostrava (Court of First Instance). The Court of First Instance ruled that if employees have to eat without being able to interrupt their work and take an uninterrupted break, during that time they are performing work and the entire shift counts as working time, for which they shall be remunerated.

However, during the course of the proceedings initiated by the complainant, the Supreme Court ruled in an unrelated proceedings that another firefighter was not entitled to remuneration for the untaken rest breaks during which he was in fact forced to discharge his duties. Thus, the courts handling the complainant’s case followed the newly formed case law of the Supreme Court and held that the complainant was not entitled to any remuneration for the untaken rest breaks.

In his constitutional complaint, the complainant alleged a violation of his right to a fair remuneration for his work and his right to a fair trial.

II. The Constitutional Court first states that in employment relationships it is always necessary to determine whether the time under consideration is a working time or a rest time; the legislation does not allow for a third option. If the complainant was obliged to be ready to intervene within 3 minutes at the latest, even during a scheduled meal and rest break, then he was performing work which, by its nature (being alert, being ready), could not be interrupted. Whether or not there was a need to intervene during the breaks, i.e., whether or not the complainant was ever 'recalled' to the fire brigade during the breaks, is completely irrelevant to the assessment of the complainant's claim. On the contrary, unpaid rest time can only be such time when the employee is free to use such time as he or she wishes, i.e., to take time off and not to be at the employer's disposal.

The Constitutional Court further stated that it is clear from the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union that working time includes all periods of on-call duty during which such restrictions are imposed on the employee which significantly affect his ability to freely dispose of his time and engage in activities of his own choice. If therefore, in the contested decisions, the lower courts interpreted the Labour Code as stating that the scheduled breaks were both rest periods for which the complainant has not been entitled to remuneration and, at the same time, also periods during which the complainant was obliged to be at the employer's disposal if necessary, such interpretation is contrary both to the spirit and purpose of the legal regulation of breaks at work and to the long-established case-law of the Court of Justice.

If the Supreme Court had been aware that an identical question of law was at issue before the Court of Justice and that the Advocate General had proposed to proceed differently from what the Supreme Court had previously ruled in a similar case, in particular, based on the Court's existing case-law, including the judgment to which the complainant repeatedly referred, then the Supreme Court's procedure leading to the contested decision shall be considered unconstitutional. The Supreme Court, in interpreting and applying national regulation originating in European Union law, did not take sufficient account of the existing case-law of the Court of Justice and departed from its case-law without submitting a request for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice. Such procedure violated the complainant's right to judicial protection guaranteed by Article 36(1) of the Charter, which includes the right to a proper (sufficient) reasoning of a judicial decision.

In the light of the above, the Constitutional Court annulled the contested judgments on the ground that they violated the applicant's fundamental right to fair remuneration for his work in conjunction with the right to judicial protection.

III. Kateřina Šimáčková served as the Justice Rapporteur in the case. None of the Justices dissented.