OPU lawyers have succeeded to obtain, for a long-term client, a stateless person, compensation for psychological and moral damage caused to him by an extremely long procedure regarding his application for determining the status of a stateless person. Without a decision in this matter, our client was in a legal limbo for more than two years, when he was repeatedly detained, could not find accommodation, work, get medical treatment or pick up a letter at the post office. Without a decision in the case, he “did not exist” on paper. The Prague 7 District Court ruled that the Ministry of the Interior is obliged to compensate the plaintiff for damages for immaterial damage and also to compensate for damages for the stay in detention, for which he had to pay. The judgment is ground-breaking in the sense that immaterial damage must be proven regarding delays in administrative proceedings (as is not the case with delays in court proceedings, for example), and therefore compensation for administrative proceedings is only rare, as psychological and moral damage is difficult to prove.
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