Hungarian Officials (Succession) Case (No 2)

• Date: 18 September 1929
• Docket Number: Case No. 44
• Court: Obsolete Court (Czechoslovakia)

Czechoslovakia, Supreme Administrative Court.

Case No. 44

Hungarian Officials (Succession) Case No. 11.

State Succession — Succession in regard to Officials — Taking Over of Officials.

The Facts.—The plaintiff, a professor in the former Hungarian Faculty of Law at Bratislava, was pensioned by the Czechoslovak authorities as from 31 July, 1921. In an action before the Supreme Administrative Court he claimed a higher pension, contending, inter alia, that according to Paragraph 12 of the (former Hungarian, now Czechoslovak) Law LXV of 1912 he was to be considered as a Czechoslovak official in active service until 31 May, 1927.

Held: that the action must be dismissed. “Seeing that the Czechoslovak State was not the successor to the Hungarian State, and that it did not succeed ipso facto to the relation of service existing between the Hungarian State and its officials, the mere fact that the plaintiff was a Hungarian professor did not give him a cause of action against the Czechoslovak State on account of his salary or pension. The plaintiff could become a Czechoslovak official only as the result of an express act of the Czechoslovak State. Equally, financial claims against the Czechoslovak State could arise for him only in consequence of an express act or of an express legal provision promulgated by the Czechoslovak State. This follows from the whole legislation by which the Czechoslovak State has regulated the legal status of the officials of the former Hungarian State.” It was sufficient to refer in this connection particularly to Laws Nos. 64/1918 and 269/1920.1 The plaintiff was not appointed by any...