War Services Law (Czechoslovakia) Case

• Jurisdiction: Republica Checa
• Docket Number: Case No. 378
• Date: 29 December 1928
• Court: Obsolete Court (Czechoslovakia)

Supreme Administrative Court of Czechoslovakia.

Case No. 378

War Services Law (Czechoslovakia) Case.

Laws in Force in the Territory of the Occupant do not Extend Automatically by the Fact of Occupation to the Occupied Territory — Territorial Limits of the Application of Municipal Legislation — Austro-Hungarian Occupation of Montenegro — The Operation of the Austrian Law concerning War Services.

The Facts.—After the territory of Montenegro had been occupied in 1916 by the Austro-Hungarian forces, the Austrian military administration seized the property of the plaintiff (a former Austrian, now Czechoslovak, firm), consisting of motor cars by which he, in accordance with a contract concluded in 1908 with the Montenegro Government, carried on the postal traffic in Montenegro. The plaintiff claimed an indemnity according to the former Austrian, now Czechoslovak, Law of 26 December, 1912, No. 236, regarding war services (of personal and material nature) rendered by the civil population. The Commission appointed to deal with the claims made in accordance with the Law No. 236 declared itself, however, not to be competent1 in the matter, holding that the seizure of the motor cars took place outside the territory to which the Law No. 236/1912 applied, and that, therefore, the seizure was not an act governed by that Law, but a requisition under the general provisions of international law.

Held upon appeal, by the Supreme Administrative Court: That the appeal must be dismissed. “… The point at issue is whether the Austrian Municipal Law of 26 December, 1912, No. 236, at the time when the seizure of the motor cars

was effected, i.e. in 1916, was to be applied to all Austrian citizens without distinction, whether they reside on Austrian territory or outside it, and to their property without regard to the place where it was situated. This question is to be considered in the first place from the general point of view, and then from the point of view whether and, if so, to what extent the fact that the seizure of the motor cars took place at a time when the territory concerned was under occupation by the Austrian military forces was relevant to the question of the territorial scope of the application of the law concerned.”

(i) “It appears from the nature of a municipal law as an emanation of the sovereignty over a certain territory that its application is limited, as a rule, to the territory of the State concerned. This principle was also expressly enunciated as to the...