A team of Slovak and Czech authors is beginning work on the first publication mapping the history and current state of administrative justice in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

The Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic and its Chancellery have concluded an agreement with the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic on the production of a monograph on the history of administrative justice. The Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic and its Chancellery have concluded an agreement with the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic on the production of a monograph on the history of administrative justice. The agreement was signed in July 2026 by Marián Trenčan, Vice-President of the Slovak Supreme Administrative Court; Zuzana Zlámalová, Head of the Chancellery of the Supreme Administrative Court; and Karel Šimka, President of the Czech Supreme Administrative Court.

Agreement between the Czech and Slovak Supreme Administrative Courts and their respective chancellories on the production of a monograph on the history of administrative justice. Photo © The Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic.

The basis for reaching an agreement is the consensus between the two supreme judicial institutions that historical understanding is significant for the development of administrative justice and its future direction. This monograph, which will be the first detailed and comprehensive publication on the history of administrative justice in the Czech lands and Slovakia from the 19th century to the present day, should contribute to this historical understanding.

The publication would focus on institutional and personal history, on how the judiciary came into being and developed under various political circumstances and at different times, and on how it was shaped by its key figures. It should include a description of the judges’ way of life and work, and of how the courts functioned as institutions; the publication should devote less attention to the development of case law itself. The monograph will also contain numerous photographs and period illustrations of original documents, prominent figures, and court premises and their furnishings.

In terms of content, the monograph begins by charting the origins of the various legal models of administrative justice prior to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in both its constituent parts; it then continues through to the period up to 1938, devoting particular attention to the period during and after the Second World War, the abolition of administrative justice in our territory in the 1950s and the period when the country found itself without administrative courts. The concluding chapters will describe the restoration of administrative justice in the united democratic republic and the different paths it took following the division of Czechoslovakia. In this monograph, the reader will also find information on key figures in the practice and doctrine of administrative justice, with some sections even set to be produced in collaboration with living witnesses to that era.

“The shared decision by the leadership of the supreme administrative courts of the Czech Republic and the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic to document, in a comprehensive publication, the history of administrative justice within their territories from its very beginnings to the present day is a significant undertaking. It involves documenting the institutional functioning of administrative justice within the historical context of major socio-political events and processes in Czechoslovakia and its successor states. It is a sincere endeavour to create a work with a strong historical and legal dimension, offering future readers a compendium of important information of great value to both parties concerned,” explained the author of the concept, Pavol Naď, former President of the Supreme Administrative Court.

The authors of the monograph – historians specialising in the Czech, Slovak and Central European institutional history of the second half of the 19th and 20th centuries – are already delving into historical materials and primary sources, primarily in the archives in Vienna, Prague and Bratislava. The aim is to publish the work in the first half of 2028 to mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the new model of the Czech administrative judiciary; it is expected to run to several hundred printed pages.