In its judgment from October 9, 2025, the District Court for Prague 4 declared that the operator of the website www.ac24.cz was entitled to compensation for damages caused by a violation of the law, consisting in the fact that one of the mobile operators (internet access service providers) had unlawfully prevented access to this website.

The District Court for Prague 4 thus followed up on the conclusions of the Municipal Court in Prague resulting from its decision from 29 February 2024, about which we previously informed you[1], when it imposed on one of the internet service providers, which decided in February 2022 to illegally block our client’s website, the obligation to compensate our client for the damage caused by this illegal blocking.

Today’s decision is entirely precedential and goes beyond the interests of our client as an individual person, as it confirms that freedom of speech is far more important than individual, often fleeting and subjective opinions, because its purpose lies precisely in protecting even expressions with which we may disagree and which may appear controversial or undesirable to some people at a given place and time.

Website blocking as a clear violation of European law and principles of the open internet

In the context of the internet environment, the most crucial is the Regulation 2015/2120 of the European Parliament, the so-called Regulation on Net Neutrality[2] (hereinafter referred to as the „Regulation), which, in particular in its Article 3, sets out the obligations of operators (internet access service providers) to ensure access to the open internet. It provides, inter alia, that: „Internet access service providers shall not implement traffic management measures which go beyond those set out in the second subparagraph and, in particular, shall not block, slow down, alter, restrict, disrupt, degrade or discriminate against specific content, applications or services or specific categories thereof.‘ 

In other words, apart from general provisions prohibiting restrictions on freedom of speech and prohibition on censorship, which are primarily directed at the state, there is also a general prohibition on censorship at the level of operators.

There are a total of three exceptions to this prohibition, which are:

– ensuring compliance with the law,

– maintaining network integrity and security; and

– preventing network congestion.

In other words, there is an explicit prohibition in terms of directly binding European law to do what individual operators in the Czech Republic have done in Febuary, 2022. The Municipal Court in Prague, in accordance with our argumentation, ruled in its decision from 29 February 2024 that blocking by individual operators does not fall under any exception and that the blocking by the mobile operator was thus in violation of a directly binding EU legislation, thereby making it liable to compensate our client for the damage incurred.

The factual situation

In February 2022, a completely unusual and an unprecedent situation, arose in the Czeh Republic when private entities, apparently in connection with a non-binding appeal by the state – the goverment of the Czech Republic, blocked specifically defined content and websites on the internet.

Our law firm represents a website operator who was affected by the above-mentioned practice of some mobile operators.

Given the lack of detail and info our client had in 2022, he first tried to get his website unblocked through preliminary measures, but it didn’t succeed. This was because the courts demanded facts and evidence that our client could not possibly have at his disposal at that time – at the same time, given the conspiratorial nature of the entire blockage, it was not even clear at first who the client should turn to.  Subsequently, in the summer of 2022, the client filed a lawsuit against one of the mobile operators (internet access service providers) for „unblocking,“ and after the mobile operator ended the block, our client sued him for compensation for the damage caused by this illegal blockage.

Resolution of the government of the Czech Republic and National Cyber Operations Centre recommendation

For context, we add that the blocking of websites by operators or administrators of the Czech .cz domain was likely done in response to the Czech Government Resolution No. 127 of February 25, 2022[3] and the follow-up recommendation of the National Cyber Operations Centre (hereinafter also as the “NCOC”) of the same date, the latter of which listed specific websites to be blocked. 

The legal nature of both of these documents has been previously addressed by the Czech courts (including the Supreme Administrative Court and the Constitutional Court). A whole series of judgments by the Municipal Court, the Supreme Administrative Court, and even the Constitutional Court[4], simply put, stated that these were only recommendations and not legally binding acts, and therefore private individuals were not required to comply with them. If they did so, they acted entirely autonomously on the basis of their own decision, and therefore these entities are also legally liable for the damage caused. From the perspective of current case law, this is due, among other things, to the fact that the entities concerned are required to have sufficient legal and administrative capacity to assess that operators are not bound by political appeals and that complying with them would violate European law.

Conclusion

In its first judgment, the court of first instance clearly approved the unlawful conduct of the defendant mobile operator, and its judgment had to be overturned by the Municipal Court in Prague. The court of first instance took advantage of this „remedy“ when it ruled that the Czech Republic is a democratic state governed by the rule of law, where the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms are the most important. 

At the same time, the court expressed its confidence in citizens, stating that they do not need anyone to determine „the truth“ for them, but that citizens themselves are best placed to decide what information they want to receive and what they do not. The idea that citizens need someone to sort out what they should and should not read would be an extremely unfortunate reflection on either the citizens or the court.

This legal dispute is not just about a sum of less than one hundred thousand crowns. It is primarily about whether Czech courts will stand their ground at the decisive moment and make it clear that freedom of speech and freedom of expression take precedence over transient geopolitics, political proclamations, and non-legal and easily abused labels such as „disinformation.“ We are pleased that both the District Court for Prague 4 and the Municipal Court in Prague have successfully passed this challenge.

Last but not least, it should be noted that the legal content published by our client on its website at the relevant time was completely irrelevant to the current legal dispute. The legal system has a whole range of instruments that can be used to restrict freedom of speech, such as criminalizing the dissemination of false alarms, legal regulations for the protection of personality rights, and others. However, these instruments do not include random decisions by private entities with significant market power to block legal content on the internet—and rightly so.

It would be truly dangerous if any court attempted to create its own definition of „disinformation“ or implicitly equated certain types of content with their lack of legal protection. As soon as a court began to qualitatively evaluate content, it would mean that it was placing itself in the role of judge of truth and falsehood—that is, of dividing free speech and information into those „worthy“ of legal protection and those that no longer deserve it.

However, such an approach always leads to censorship. Tomorrow, anyone else could find themselves in the same category—a journalist, publicist, blogger, or any ordinary citizen— simply because their views do not reflect the majority or politically preferred opinion. That is precisely why freedom of speech also protects expressions that are controversial, difficult, or unpopular. The importance of this dispute thus far exceeds the interests of individuals – including our client.

The mobile operator’s (internet access service provider’s) actions must be viewed very critically, as they constitute an extraordinary excess resembling censorship and involving the control and blocking of access to the content of specific websites. We therefore welcome the fact that, after more than three years of litigation, the court of first instance has established that the party responsible for the blocking acted completely unlawfully, in violation of the Regulation, and is therefore liable for compensation for the damage caused.

The team of AK Sudolská

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[1] https://www.aksudolska.cz/zajimavosti-z-prava/the-municipal-court-in-prague-declared-the-blockage-of-internet-websites-by-internet-service-providers-illegal/.

[2]  Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 laying down measures concerning open internet access and amending Directive 2002/22/EC on universal service and users’ rights relating to electronic communications networks and services and Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 on roaming on public mobile communications networks within the Union (Text with EEA relevance).

[3] https://vlada.gov.cz/cz/urad-vlady/poskytovani-informaci/poskytnute-informace-na-zadost/informace-tykajici-se-udajnych-dezinformacnich-webu-195270/.

[4] e.g. judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court from January 20, 2023  file number 4 As 206/2022 – 108, judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court August, 9 2023, file number 7 As 22/2023 – 41 or judgment of the Constitutional Court from April, 9 2024, file number III. ÚS 2628/23 and judgment of the Constitutional Court from December, 6 2023, file number Pl. ÚS 5/23.

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