Right to a Court Decision within a Reasonable Time in Civil Proceedings

This contribution shall serve as a brief overview of the actual judgments by the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic on compensation for immaterial harm caused by incorrect steps taken by authorities, i.e. not reaching a decision within a reasonable time. This contribution also pinpoints the fact that the provisions provided in the Czech legislation – as enacted by the Act No. 160/2006 Coll. – are strongly motivated and inspired by judgments by the European Court of Human Rights, which vice versa responded to these new provisions in its case of Apicella v. Italy. Some of the findings included in this decision have already been reflected in judicial decisions by the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic thus there is a sort of remote exchange of approaches and legal communication.