Personal injury

It is not clear from your question in what context you are inquiring about the statute of limitations. Generally speaking, both the limitation period for a claim for damages for personal injury and, depending on the specific case, the limitation period for criminal prosecution (if the injury was caused by a criminal offense) come into consideration. Since we do not have enough information for a criminal law assessment of your question, we will focus our answer on the statute of limitations for a claim for damages.

The statute of limitations is regulated in Section 100 et seq. of the Civil Code. According to Section 106 of the Civil Code: “A right to compensation for damages shall be barred by the statute of limitations two years from the day the injured party learns of the damage and of who is liable for it (subjective limitation period). At the latest, the right to compensation for damages shall be barred by the statute of limitations after three years, or if the damage was caused intentionally, after ten years from the day the event from which the damage arose occurred (objective limitation period); this does not apply in cases of personal injury. The right to compensation for damages caused by a criminal offense of corruption under a special law shall be barred by the statute of limitations three years from the day the court’s convicting decision on the commission of a corruption offense becomes final, at the latest ten years from the day such an offense was committed.”

It follows from the above that for personal injury (damage to health), only the subjective limitation period of 2 years applies from the time the injured party learned of the damage and the person liable for it, and the objective limitation period of 3 / 10 years from the event from which the damage arose does not apply to it.

According to professional literature as well: “Exclusively a two-year subjective limitation period applies to the assertion of the right to compensation for personal injury. Thus, an objective limitation period is not standardized at all for these rights. This relatively exceptional construct is teleologically justifiable by the very nature of damage caused to health, which may not necessarily manifest within a short period after the tortfeasor’s unlawful conduct or the damaging event. For example, there may be a gradual deterioration of health, the manifestation of further harmful consequences, etc. It is consistently held by the courts that individual components of the right to compensation for damages represent separate partial rights which, as such, are also barred by the statute of limitations independently (e.g., compensation for loss of earnings, pain and suffering, and compensation for diminished social utility, etc.)” (ŠTEVČEK, M. et al. Civil Code I. Sections 1 – 450. Commentary. Prague : C. H. Beck, 2015).