Summary

Recently the Supreme Court has been addressed with several cases where the main issue is the timely communication of a decision of an administrative authority. Communication is documented by the delivery procedure. For the addressee, the effectiveness of delivery affects both the commencement of the term for contesting the decision and the possibility of being subject to compulsory execution. Therefore, delivery is of extreme importance from the perspective of fundamental rights. However, the interests of the delivering party should not be ignored either.

The author examines the concept of delivery in the Administrative Procedure Act by focusing on the objectives and types of delivery and on the consequences of violations of delivery provisions. The regulation of delivery in the Administrative Procedure Act is compared briefly with the respective rules of other procedure codes. By analysing the law in force, the author comes to the conclusion that the regulation of delivery has many gaps: there is no clear regulation of possible procedure errors, the protection of person’s rights is not ensured, the Administrative Procedure Act does not provide for the possibility to deliver a document by fax, to mention but a few. The author puts forward a proposal to consider establishing the general part of the delivery procedure, or to pass a general delivery Act to regulate delivery in administrative, criminal, misdemeanour and court proceedings.