WHEN DOES THE “ONCE AND FOR ALL” PRINCIPLE APPLY? THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT HAS CLARIFIED THE INTERPRETATION OF SECTION 390 OF THE CODE OF CIVIL CONTENTIOUS PROCEDURE
The Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic considered whether the “once and for all” rule under Section 390 of the Code of Civil Contentious Procedure also applies where the previous decisions of the lower courts were quashed by the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic in cassation proceedings.
The judgment of the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic, case no. II. ÚS 63/2026 of 10 June 2026, addresses an important issue of civil procedure, namely whether an appellate court may quash a decision of a court of first instance and remit the case to that court for further proceedings where the previous judgments of both the court of first instance and the appellate court had already been quashed by the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic in cassation proceedings.
The Constitutional Court answered that question in the affirmative.
The “once and for all” principle under Section 390 of the Code of Civil Contentious Procedure does not constitute a general prohibition on any further quashing of a decision of a court of first instance. What matters is not how many times the first-instance decision has been quashed in the course of the proceedings as a whole, but whether it had previously been quashed specifically by the appellate court, which then remitted the case to the court of first instance for further proceedings and a new decision.