When reducing the amount of replacement maintenance, payments from the obligor are counted towards maintenance for the current calendar month and not towards the maintenance owed
Legal principle stated by the Court:
The content of the legal norm § 4a) point 2 of Act No. 201/2008 Coll. on Substitute Maintenance shows that the substitute maintenance to which the entitled person is entitled is, according to § 2(1) letter a) first point or second point of the Act, in the amount of the difference between the amount of maintenance determined by the court decision and the amount of maintenance paid by the obligated person, if the obligated person does not fulfill the maintenance obligation in full.
On October 30, 2025, the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic, by judgment Case No. 6Ssk/126/2025, changed the judgment of the Administrative Court in Košice (hereinafter referred to as the “Administrative Court”) by dismissing the administrative action of the entitled person for review of the legality of the decision of the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family Bratislava and the first-instance decision, which, pursuant to Section 9(3) of Act No. 201/2008 Coll. on Substitute Maintenance (hereinafter referred to as the “Act on Substitute Maintenance”), reduced the amount of substitute maintenance for the entitled person.
The Supreme Administrative Court dealt with the decision of the administrative court on the payment of substitute maintenance after deducting the amount recovered from the non-paying parent abroad. Contrary to the conclusions of the administrative court, the Supreme Administrative Court considered proven from the submitted case file that the facts were properly established by the administrative authority and, as a result, were also correctly assessed. The conditions for the creation of the right to substitute maintenance are regulated in the Act on Substitute Maintenance. It follows from Section 4(1) and (2) of the Act on Substitute Maintenance that substitute maintenance is fundamentally provided so that the entitled person has the amount of maintenance awarded by the court decision, or the difference between the amount of maintenance determined by the court decision and the amount of maintenance paid by the obligated person, if the obligated person does not fulfill the maintenance obligation in full. This means that if the obligor does not pay maintenance at all, the state pays the replacement maintenance in the full amount. If the obligor pays maintenance in part, the state makes up for the unpaid part of the maintenance with replacement maintenance. Therefore, the competent authorities acted correctly when they considered the amount of maintenance recovered abroad and reduced the amount of replacement maintenance.
If the administrative court considered the legal assessment of the entitled person’s claim to replacement maintenance by the administrative authority to be incorrect and annulled its decision, it itself assessed the matter incorrectly. The cassation appeal in terms of the defendant’s applied complaint was well-founded, as a result of which the cassation court changed the contested judgment by dismissing the action.
The judgment was adopted unanimously by the Supreme Administrative Court, and no appeal is admissible against it.
The decision was made by Panel No. 6 of the Supreme Administrative Court, composed of: the President of the Panel JUDr. Viola Takáčová, PhD. LL.M. and the members of the Panel JUDr. Martin Tiso and JUDr. Michal Matulník, PhD.