In a recent decision of the Supreme Administrative Court published in the Collection of Judgments of the Supreme Administrative Court No. 6/2024, the court clarified, once and hopefully for all, some questions that often arise in connection with the formalities of powers of attorney.

In the administrative proceedings at issue, the plaintiff sent a data message to the competent administrative authority by means of a data mailbox, in which he authorised a specific person to represent him. However, the administrative authority refused to accept the power of attorney in that form, against which the plaintiff started to defend himself. In the subsequent proceedings, the Regional Court found in favour of the plaintiff. The administrative authority lodged a cassation complaint against this decision, in which it explained that it had rejected the power of attorney on two grounds:

• The power of attorney was not expressly accepted by the agent; and
• The power of attorney was not contained in a separate document.

The Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the decision of the court of first instance on the following grounds.

Regarding the question of the necessity of the acceptance of the power of attorney by the agent, the court emphasized what has been said many times before, i.e. that the power of attorney is not an agreement between two parties on representation, but a mere evidence of the existence of a relationship between the agent and the principal. As the power of attorney is a unilateral legal act, acceptance by the other party is not relevant. As to the form of the power of attorney and whether or not it must be executed as a separate document, the court relied on the statutory provisions governing powers of attorney. A power of attorney under these provisions must be made either in writing or orally directly on the record.

The court clearly declared that any requirement of additional essentials for a power of attorney is not supported by law. Thus, a power of attorney can be a data message, an email, a separate document or, for example, one of the provisions in a contract or other document.

In addition to what the SAC said, we would like to add that the will of the agent to act on behalf of the principal can be inferred from the fact that the agent acts on behalf of the principal and performs specific acts in a particular case. Relying on unjustified formalities such as signing an acceptance clause slows down the entire representation process.

In view of the fact that the regulation of powers of attorney is virtually identical across legal systems, the court also felt the need to emphasise that the above opinion can easily be applied in other procedural sectors, whether administrative, administrative-judicial or civil proceedings. The only exceptions will be situations where the law requires special essentials such as an officially certified signature.

This decision came completely by chance at a time when we were doing our own internal analysis of whether it was really necessary for powers of attorney to contain an acceptance clause. We have found that there is conflicting case law from the highest courts and that the issue as such is not fully clarified. We therefore gratefully accept and welcome the above position.

In conclusion, we can only hope that, in light of this decision of the SAC, the above-mentioned opinions will be respected in the decision-making activities of authorities in both public administration and the judiciary. And, conversely, that these authorities will devote their energies to the substance of the matter instead of irrelevant formalities.