Suability of a Rector’s Decisions to Suspend a Student’s Rights

The present study concerns the issue of suability of a rector’s decision on the suspension of a student’s rights. The author tries to define the appellate measures that a student has the right to use and the consequences of lodging them. The critical issue consists in the necessity to delimit a student’s suspension as a disciplinary penalty imposed as a result of a disciplinary proceeding conducted by the disciplinary commission in the mode and on terms specified in the Act on Higher Education and Science and appropriate application of the Code of Criminal Procedure and suspension as a result of an administrative decision issued by a university rector before the initiation of an explanatory proceeding or in the course of a disciplinary proceeding. The starting point was to define the legal nature of the relationship between a student and a university as an administrative institution managed by a rector. The considerations lead to the necessity to adopt a presumption that a rector’s decision in a case in question is a form of an administrative decision. Only the adoption of this optics leads to the reconstruction of appellate measures that enable a student – in case of those that are not final – to use non-devolutive appellate measures in the form of a motion to reconsider a case, which is classified as a horizontal instance, or a complaint to an administrative court in accordance with Article 52 § 3 Act on Proceedings before Administrative Courts. The legislator left the choice of the legal remedy to a student. A student still has the right to lodge a complaint about a final decision to an administrative court.