Salary Due by the Former Government (Czechoslovakia) Case

• Jurisdiction: Republica Checa
• Docket Number: Case No. 35
• Date: 05 December 1921
• Court: Supreme Administrative Court (Czech Republic)

Czechoslovakia, Supreme Administrative Court.

Case No. 35

Salary Due by the Former Government (Czechoslovakia) Case.

State Succession — Succession to Obligations — Payment of Money Owing by the Former Government — Natural Law and Positive Law.

The Facts.—The plaintiff was made prisoner during the war, and after his return from captivity was taken over1 into the Czechoslovak army. Subsequently he made an application to the Czechoslovak authorities demanding payment of a certain sum of money due to him, for the duration of his captivity, by the former Austro-Hungarian military administration as part of his salary as officer. His claim was not recognised, and he lodged an appeal with the Supreme Administrative Court, contending, inter alia, that (i) the Czechoslovak State assumed the pecuniary obligations of the former State in regard to officials whom it had taken over, and that (ii) the Czechoslovak State, having taken over parts of the former army and in particular all military establishments of the former State with all their assets, cannot according to natural law refuse payments due to military persons for their services to the former State.

Held by the Supreme Administrative Court: That the appeal failed.

(a) Even if there were succession of the Czechoslovak State to the rights and obligations of the former State, such succession would relate only to the taking over of the plaintiff into the Czechoslovak army. But from this taking over, which does not mean anything else than that the person thus taken over

enters into the service of the new State, there cannot be deduced an obligation of the succeeding State to pay him his claims against the former State, as “it is by no means selfevident that pecuniary obligations of public law incurred in relations of public service pass eo ipso to the so-called succeeding State. Neither does international law recognise a transference of such claims.”...