Employment & Labour Law
CE, 2 February 2024, no. 484051
The Czabaj ruling of 13 July 2016 is one of those decisions that profoundly shapes administrative litigation.
Until then, the combined reading of articles R.421-1 and R.421-5 of the Code of Administrative Justice led the administrative judge to accept, without any time limit, all appeals against an individual administrative decision that did not mention the channels and time limits for appeal.
This was a very comfortable situation for applicants, as they were able to challenge these decisions without any time limits (subject, of course, to compliance with the statute of limitations).
The Conseil d'Etat now considers that, even in the absence of such information, the decisions in question can only be challenged within a "reasonable period" which it sets, barring "special circumstances", at one year from notification of the decision or knowledge of it by the interested party.
This will enhance legal certainty and radically change litigation practices.
The scope of this new rule was subsequently clarified:
- It applies to litigation concerning enforceable titles[1] and to express decisions with a purely pecuniary purpose[2];
- It does not apply to litigation concerning the liability of public authorities[3], an area in which the Conseil d'Etat considers that legal certainty is sufficiently ensured by the rules of the four-year limitation period.
- For the same reasons, it does not apply to contractual performance litigation[4];
- Nor does it apply to litigation before the courts, as the Cour de Cassation has just confirmed[5].
The question of the specific circumstances justifying a time limit of more than 1 year for bringing an action has not been dealt with much in the case law.
The judgment reviewed here provides an interesting illustration.
On 9 April 1976, a French national, Mr A, applied for authorisation to lose his French nationality, as authorised by the provisions applicable on that date of article 91 of the French Nationality Code, for himself and his minor children.
This request was accepted by a decree dated 5 May 1977.
One of his children was only informed of the existence of this decree, which had not been notified to him, by a summons issued in 2017 by the Public Prosecutor, who disputed that a certificate of French nationality had been issued to him.
The Court of Cassation finally ruled on 28 June 2023 that he should not have been issued with a certificate of French nationality, as he had not held French nationality since the 1977 decree.
Mr B therefore lodged an action for annulment of this decree on 17 August 2023, 46 years after it was issued.
On this very specific issue, the Conseil d'Etat had already ruled in 2019 that such a decree, releasing an individual from his allegiance to France, could be challenged within three years "from the date of publication of the decree or, if later, from the date on which the person concerned came of age"[6].
This already constituted a derogation from the one-year time limit set in principle by the Czabaj ruling.
In the judgment under review, the Conseil d'Etat went further and agreed, in view of the particular circumstances of the case, to extend the time limit for challenging the decree to 46 years from its publication.
It should be noted that
- The claimant was not aware of the existence of the decree until 2017;
- He had been issued with a French identity card in 2000.
Ultimately, the Conseil d'Etat upheld the 3-year time limit for appeals, but made it run:
"From the outcome of proceedings before the judicial courts concerning his nationality".
This brings the reasonable time limit for appeals to 46 years.
This solution, which clearly protects the interests of the claimant, nevertheless raises questions, since the claimant had been aware of the famous decree at least since 2017, the date of the summons from the Public Prosecutor.
This must be seen as a desire to understand the concept of reasonable time in concrete terms.
While the illustration is interesting, the very specific nature of the case in question means that no solution can be found in principle and, pending further clarification of the case law, practitioners are left with a degree of uncertainty.
[1] CE, 16 April 2019, no. 422004
[2] CE, 9 March 2018, no. 405355
[3] CE, 17 June 2019, no. 413097
[4 ] CAA Lyon, 7 October 2021, no. 21LY00022
[5 ] C.cass, Plénière, 8 March 2024, no. 21-12.560
[6] CE, 29 November 2019, no. 426372
