Constitutional Court: a person with limited capacity must be given a real chance to show improvement

The essence of the finding in a few sentences

The Constitutional Court confirmed that the restriction of legal capacity may be appropriate in some cases, but only as an extreme and individually justified measure. In this case, it criticised the general courts for effectively preventing the applicant from demonstrating an improvement in his abilities and for extending the restrictions too widely to areas not directly related to his specific difficulties. On the contrary, the Constitutional Court upheld the restriction on the right to vote. The case now returns to the Court of Appeal, which must reassess the extent of the restriction and whether more lenient support measures would not have been sufficient.

Case in point: what were the restrictions

The applicant was once deprived of his legal capacity after reaching the age of majority; following the recodification of private law, he is listed as a person with limited legal capacity. In 2021, a motion was made to restore his capacity and at the same time to approve a contract of assistance because, according to the non-profit organization that worked with the man, he had made a significant shift in his independence since the last adjudication. However, the district court did not grant the motion and set fairly broad restrictions for the next three years: the man was not allowed to independently dispose of more than CZK 1 500 per week, enter into certain contracts, deal with rent, inheritance, certain family law issues, or enter into a marriage or registered partnership without consent; he was also restricted in his right to vote. The Court of Appeal narrowed the scope of the restrictions only slightly and the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. Only then did the case reach the Constitutional Court.

The Constitutional Court annulled the decision of the Supreme Court and a substantial part of the decision of the Court of Appeal. In doing so, it explicitly stated that the general courts had violated the complainant’s fundamental rights under Articles 5, 10(1), 10(2) and 36(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. However, it rejected the remainder of the constitutional complaint – in other words, it did not fully uphold it in all respects.

When a court can limit your legal capacity – and when it can’t

There is one important thing about this ruling: The Constitutional Court found that the Czech legislation on the limitation of legal capacity can stand up even in the light of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. At the same time, however, the Court reminded the Court that self-determination is the rule and that its restriction is the exception – and an exception that must be individually justified, proportionate and genuinely necessary.

This is also consistent with the Civil Code. The latter states that the restriction of legal capacity may be imposed only in the interests of the person concerned, after having seen him or her and only when less severe means are not sufficient. This is the practical crux of the matter: the court is not supposed to “shut a person out of legal life”, but to seek the least restrictive solution that will protect him from serious harm. Therefore, in addition to guardianship, Czech law also knows about supportive measures, such as assistance in decision-making.

For the layman, this means only one thing: it is not enough that a person has a diagnosis or is “vulnerable”. The court must explain exactly how he or she is unable to handle a particular area of legal conduct, what real risk he or she faces, and why support instead of restriction is not enough. Diagnosis alone is not a universal vignette for banning almost everything.

Constitutional Court: improvement cannot always be attributed to the guardian alone

The strongest part of the ruling points to an inherent contradiction in previous decisions. On the one hand, the general courts have acknowledged that there has been a significant shift in the complainant’s independence. On the other hand, however, they practically refused to attach importance to the fact that he had not caused any problems during the period of the restriction of his autonomy which would have led to damage to his interests. They simply did not recognise his success – they attributed it to the system of restriction and guardianship.

The Constitutional Court saw this as an unacceptable logical loop. For if the court says, “It is only to the guardian’s credit that nothing happened,” without showing a single specific instance where the guardian actually averted harm, it creates a situation in which a person with limited capacity has virtually no way to show improvement. And that is a problem not only humanly, but constitutionally.

In other words, if a person has been managing ordinary life without problems for a long time, the court cannot attribute that to the limitation alone. It has to look carefully at whether this is evidence of a genuine shift, what role the support of the environment plays, and whether a more lenient regime is no longer appropriate. This is a very important message for the practice of the custody courts.

Problems in one area do not mean limitations in everything

Another significant criticism was that the courts had carried the complainant’s problems with numbers and rent payment into a completely different area – marriage or civil partnership. The Court of Appeal essentially argued that someone who needs help with rent cannot understand the implications of marriage. The Constitutional Court found this approach to be unreasonable.

According to the Constitutional Court, the courts completely ignored the non-economic and emotional dimension of the partnership relationship and did not weigh it against the threat of harm. This is important: entering into a marriage or partnership is not just a set of rights and obligations. It is also a part of private and family life that must not be interfered with in a blanket manner, without careful and individualized justification. Moreover, according to the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court did not deal with the complainant’s objection in this area at all, which only deepened the defects of previous decisions.

In practice, this implies a simple rule: if a person has difficulties in one particular area, the court cannot automatically infer from that his or her unfitness for almost everything. It is precisely this transfer of limitations to other areas of life that is legally dangerous. Each area of legal conduct must stand on its own merits.

On the question of the right to be elected, the Constitutional Court did not uphold the applicant’s

On the contrary, the Constitutional Court upheld the conclusion that in this particular case the restriction on the passive right to vote, i.e. the right to stand for election, could stand. According to the judgment, the general courts had sufficiently assessed whether the complainant understood the meaning, purpose and consequences of standing for election and of the possible exercise of his mandate. In doing so, they also took into account the constitutional requirement of personal exercise of the mandate and the responsibilities associated with the exercise of elected office, including possible liability for damages and the duty to act with due care.

The Constitutional Court also disagreed with the objection that the Supreme Court should have referred a preliminary question to the CJEU. In its view, the questions formulated by the complainant were not relevant to the resolution of the case. Here again, however, it is important to read the ruling accurately: the court did not say that people with limited legal capacity generally cannot run for office. It only said that in this particular case, the courts did not cross the constitutional line.

How the ruling may change the courts’ decision-making

The finding is a reminder that the limitation of legal capacity is really meant to be a last resort. Courts must ascertain the facts of the case, assess a person’s particular abilities, and consider whether support, assistance, or a narrower restriction would be sufficient.

In practice, this can help people who seek to narrow the restrictions on their capacity or to return to full capacity. If they are coping with ordinary situations in the long term, functioning with support from those around them and are not at risk of specific serious harm, the court really needs to assess their progress.

The case now returns to the Court of Appeal, which will have to consider afresh and in more detail what extent of restriction is still necessary and whether in some areas more lenient measures, or the approval of a support agreement, would be sufficient.

Summary

In this ruling, the Constitutional Court has confirmed that the restriction of legal capacity is not unconstitutional in itself, but that the courts may only resort to it as a last and carefully reasoned solution. In the present case, the Court considers that the municipal courts erred in particular by making it effectively impossible for the complainant to demonstrate an improvement in his abilities: even though they themselves acknowledged a shift in his independence, they automatically attributed all his achievements to guardianship. They thus created an unacceptable situation in which a person with limited capacity has no realistic chance of achieving change.

The Constitutional Court also criticised the fact that the courts had disproportionately extended the consequences of problems with managing and paying rent to other areas of life, such as the possibility of marriage or partnership. Such interference, it said, must always be assessed individually, specifically and with respect for human dignity and private life. On the other hand, the Constitutional Court upheld the interference with the right to vote because it considered the reasoning of the general courts on this point to be sufficient. The case now returns to the Court of Appeal, which will have to reassess what restrictions are still genuinely necessary and whether more lenient support measures would not suffice.