The principle of in dubio pro libertate applies only when there are two equivalent interpretative alternatives

On November 25, 2025, the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic, by judgment case file no. 3Svk/9/2025, dismissed the cassation complaint against the judgment of the Administrative Court in Banská Bystrica (hereinafter referred to as the “Administrative Court”) in the matter of the assessment of an arrears in payment for minerals extracted from the mining areas of Banská Hodruša and Banská Štiavnica. The Court of Cassation examined terminological ambiguities in the interpretation of the terms “mineral” and “ore” in relation to the determination of the payment rate for the extraction of minerals with different contents of the metals gold and silver. In agreement with the administrative court, it came to the opinion that it was the clear intention of the legislator to set a scale of payment rates for minerals depending on their significance, and therefore minerals containing gold and silver should also be subject to a higher rate, regardless of the terminological inconsistency in the use of the terms “mineral” and “ore” in applicable law.

The Administrative Court in Banská Bystrica dismissed the lawsuit by which the mining company sought to have the decision of the Main Mining Office on the assessment of the underpayment of compensation for extracted minerals for the years 2016-2020. The difference resulted from the fact that the mining company, when mining minerals containing gold and silver, paid compensation at the lower rate determined for minerals from which metals can be industrially produced, not at the higher rate determined for gold and silver ores. The mining company filed an administrative lawsuit against the decision of the Main Mining Office, which was dismissed by the administrative court.

In the cassation complaint filed, the mining company argued that the concept of mineral is in principle broader than the concept of ore. That is, not every mineral from which gold and silver are mined is an ore of gold and silver. Therefore, the mining of minerals that contained the metals gold and silver should not have been subject to a fee as for the mining of gold and silver ore. It also argued that if there are doubts regarding the interpretation of legal regulations, public authorities are obliged to apply the principles in dubio mitius and in dubio pro libertate – in doubt in favor of freedom. According to the mining company, the Main Mining Office should have used the interpretation that interferes with fundamental rights and freedoms as little as possible and applied a lower rate.

The Court of Cassation, in response to the mining company’s argument that the principles of in dubio mitius and in dubio pro libertate should be applied, stated that these are situations where the text of a written law would allow for different interpretations, and therefore, in such a case, the application practice should lean towards a procedure that is more favorable to the addressee of such a norm. However, the existence of mutually competing interpretative alternatives is crucial for their application, which, in terms of conclusions, represent qualitatively and argumentatively alternative starting points at a comparable level, from which it is possible to infer the ambiguity of the legal regulation. The ambiguous text of the law, which allows for these interpretations, must also correspond to this. However, such a case was not the case in the case at hand.

In the opinion of the local court, it is also clear that in the applied standards the state expressed its intention to determine the rate of payment for individual gold and silver ores in terms of their significance. It is therefore clear that the legislator intended to burden ores containing gold and silver with a higher rate of payment. The terms ore/mineral are synonyms. This intention is also clear from the grammatical interpretation – the wording of the applied legal regulation.

The cassation complainant in this regard offered an alternative interpretation of the provisions of the Regulation on Payments. He argued that the legislator clearly and consistently distinguishes between the designation of ore and mineral. Since items b) and c) of the Regulation on Payments are intended to be an internal differentiation of the content of the provision of Section 3, paragraph 1, letter c) of the Mining Act, it can be concluded, according to the complainant, that although the legislator considers ores to be minerals, he does not automatically consider every mineral to be an ore, i.e. ore is a narrower term than mineral and is not a synonym. According to the complainant, gold and silver ores also belong to the minerals from which metals can be industrially produced, but every mineral containing gold or silver (or a mineral from which gold and silver can be industrially produced) is not also a gold and silver ore. If this were the case, the Regulation on Payments would, according to the complainant, in item c) state “minerals from which gold and silver can be industrially produced” and not “gold and silver ores”. The complainant also stated that “the use of the term ore indicates a certain additional requirement, which is specified by the defendant himself with a different intention and with a logically incorrect conclusion, when in the decision he points out such a definition of the term ore, according to which it is supposed to be a mineral from which metal components can be extracted with benefit on an industrial scale, and therefore the use of the term “ore” also depends on the commercial, technical, and transport conditions of mining and its subsequent technological processing. The Court of Cassation could not agree with this interpretation as competing, because it purposefully confuses the conceptual definition, where it characterizes Au ore and Ag ore as qualitatively more significant than Au and Ag minerals, which contradicts publicly available terminology and legal tradition. Government Regulation No. 532/1992 Coll. contains the term “gold and silver ores” in the Annex, and Government Regulation No. 155/1994 Coll. also includes the term “gold and silver ores” in Annex No. 2. In geology, “ore” is understood as a rock from which it is possible to economically obtain a metal. Even though gold (Au) is a chemically separate element and is also found separately, from the point of view of mining it usually does not occur separately but occurs in so-called mineralized rocks and is mined as “gold-bearing ore”. The same applies to silver (Ag). For example, in the yearbook of the State Geological Institute of Dionýz Štúr from 2023 (PDF, 10.2 MB) (PDF), gold and silver are listed as so-called ore raw materials (on pages 56 and 62), with the proviso that this document divides mineral raw materials in the Slovak Republic into energy raw materials, ore raw materials, non-ore raw materials and construction raw materials.

According to the Court of Cassation, this statement purposefully confuses the conceptual definition, where it characterizes gold ore and silver ore as qualitatively more significant than gold and silver minerals, which contradicts publicly available terminology and legal tradition.

For these reasons, the Court of Cassation dismissed the mining company’s cassation complaint and agreed with the argumentation of the Administrative Court.

This judgment was adopted unanimously by the Supreme Administrative Court, and no appeal is admissible against it.

This was decided by Panel No. 3 of the Supreme Administrative Court, composed of: President of the Panel JUDr. Michal Dzurdzík, PhD. (Judge Rapporteur) and Judges JUDr. Katarína Benczová and JUDr. Zuzana Šabová, PhD.