The government’s declaration of a state of emergency on 12 March 2020 has raised procedural doubts, and an action for its annulment has already been brought. It is thus possible that in fact, no state of emergency was formally declared, therefore no emergency measures could have been adopted based on it. Furthermore, the initially issued governmental regulations were subsequently cancelled and replaced by emergency measures of the Ministry of Health.
The issue of the legitimacy of the declaration of a state of emergency, and of the subsequent measures, also affects the possibility of claiming damages from the state. We are monitoring the issue closely and will present a more detailed analysis to you soon.
Possible suspension of deadlines during the state of emergency
The presidents of the regional courts have called upon the Ministry of Justice to adopt a legislative measure retrospectively suspending the running of deadlines under both substantive and procedural law, as at the time of declaring the state of emergency. The reason is that proper court proceedings, including, e.g., the parties’ possibility to inspect court files, have now been substantially limited, if not rendered impossible.