Czechoslovak Agrarian Reform (Swiss Subjects) Case [Supreme Administrative Court of Czechoslovakia.]

• Jurisdiction: Republica Checa
• Date: 12 June 1926
• Docket Number: Case No. 5.
• Court: Obsolete Court (Czechoslovakia)

Supreme Administrative Court of Czechoslovakia.

Case No. 5.

Czechoslovak Agrarian Reform (Swiss Subjects) Case.

Effect of Treaties on Third Parties Pacta in Favorem Tertii.

International Law Relation to Municipal Law Treaties Necessity of Municipal Legislation Effect on Third Parties Effect on Private Individuals.

The Facts.In an action brought against the Land Office (an office charged with the carrying out of the agrarian reform), before the Supreme Administrative Court, the plaintiff, a Swiss subject, claimed that his estate should not be subjected to the Czechoslovak agrarian reform on the ground, inter alia, that paragraph 1 of the Law of 16 April, 1919, No. 215, according to which any landed estate of a certain size defined by the law, situated in Czechoslovak territory, was to be subjected to the agrarian reform, was modified by the Treaties of Peace (Treaty of Trianon, Article 63, 232 (i) and 250, and corresponding articles of the Treaty of St. Germain); that as the result of these treaty provisions the landed estates of Austrian and Hungarian subjects were exempted from the agrarian reform, and therefore a fortiori the landed estates of subjects of States neutral in the world war must be exempt.

Held: That the plaintiff's action failed. (1) The stipulations of the Treaties of Peace referred to by the plaintiff, even if his interpretation thereof were correct, could not modify the provisions of the Czechoslovak law, as they were not a part of the Czechoslovak municipal law. There was a distinction between a municipal law and an international treaty, a distinction which appeared also in paragraph 2 of the law of 13 March, 1919, No. 139, concerning the promulgation of laws and decrees.1

International treaties, although they were also a source of law, created law only as between contracting States. In cases when their stipulations concerned the rights and duties of the subjects of the contracting States, the Treaty as such could only bind the contracting States to incorporate corresponding provisions into their municipal law, and thus make the stipulations of the treaty binding also in the municipal sphere. As regards the Czechoslovak State, the official publication of the treaty was not sufficient to fulfil this obligation. For this purpose the stipulations of the treaty must be promulgated in the form required by the Constitution as provisions of the Czechoslovak legislative power, i.e., as a Law or a Decree. Such a subsequent recognition of a...