Brno driver posed as ministers and activists: Supreme Court reduced sentence to 22 months
A Brno driver, Jan Fajkus, spent two years using false personal details of politicians and activists to evade traffic offences. The Supreme Court reduced his sentence to 22 months conditionally and a fine of 90,000 crowns.
Brno driver misused names of Health Minister Vojtěch and 21 others; Supreme Court reduced his sentence
Ceska-justice.cz reports on the case of Brno driver Jan Fajkus, who for two years evaded responsibility for traffic offences by submitting false personal details of public figures to administrative authorities. The Supreme Court in judgment ref. no. 6 Tdo 662/2025 partially quashed both previous judgments and reduced the sentence proportionately.
Fajkus owned several vehicles, including an Alfa Romeo and a BMW 116i. He repeatedly parked in paid parking zones without payment or violated entry bans. To avoid sanctions, he listed other people's names as drivers of his cars — he obtained personal details by searching the internet or reviewing files in cases where he himself appeared as a suspect or a representative.
The list of victims comprises 22 names. Among them are Health Minister Adam Vojtěch, transport expert and MP Stanislav Huml — who died shortly afterwards — and environmental activist Anna Kárníková from the Duha movement, Miroslav Patrik from the Děti země organisation, or six people connected with the Romea Roma media platform headed by Patrik Banga.
Fajkus caused the most serious harm to municipal police officers Michal Jelínek and Tomáš Procházka. He published their photographs and personal details on his website accompanied by derogatory text about "armed chimpanzees from the Municipal Police of Lázně Bohdaneč". It was on the basis of this that the courts concluded there was an offence of unlawful handling of personal data in aggravated form — via a publicly accessible computer network.
The Brno municipal court sentenced Fajkus in September 2024 to a conditional sentence of 27 months. The regional court, following the public prosecutor's appeal, added a monetary fine of 100,000 crowns. The Supreme Court quashed both judgments owing to errors by the lower courts concerning two separate offences, in which proceedings had previously been discontinued due to the statute of limitations. On these counts Fajkus was partially acquitted and his sentence was reduced to 22 months conditionally and a fine of 90,000 crowns.
The case also produced a significant legal conclusion. The Supreme Court made its first binding pronouncement on the question of the statute of limitations in the context of the new administrative offences law. The appellate court held the view that discontinuation of proceedings due to the statute of limitations did not create a bar to the matter, if the administrative authority had not assessed the offender's culpability. The Supreme Court rejected this interpretation.
Under the previous rules, the statute of limitations was not formally decided upon — only a note was entered in the file without a ruling. However, the new administrative offences law, which came into force in 2016, changed the rules and expressly stipulated that the administrative authority must discontinue proceedings by resolution. The Supreme Court relied on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, in particular the judgments in Mihalache v. Romania (2019), Zolotukhin v. Russia (2009) and Lucky Dev v. Sweden. It described a final resolution to discontinue proceedings due to the statute of limitations as a "final decision" within the meaning of Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which establishes a bar of res iudicata and prevents criminal prosecution for the same act.
"Logically it would be in contradiction with this meaning and purpose of the statute of limitations to conclude that the accused could be prosecuted in such a case in criminal proceedings," stated the panel led by Milada Šámalová in the judgment's reasoning.
The court awarded municipal police officers Jelínek and Procházka each 25,000 crowns in compensation for non-pecuniary damage. With regard to the remainder of their claims, as well as those of Health Minister Vojtěch, the victims were referred to the possibility of filing a civil lawsuit.
Source: Google News CZ — Crime (cs)