What effect will Visapoint termination have on immigration procedure in the Czech Republic?

At the end of October, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs discontinued the so-called Visapoint; a tool used by foreigners to book a meeting for submission of the stay permit application with a local Czech Republic embassy in an electronic form.

The whole system was heavily criticized as it was stormed by applications in certain countries to the extent that it was impossible to log in to it. Due to the impossibility to apply for the permit without a registration, many applicants were practically forced to pay considerable amounts of money to those traffickers, who could ensure a free slot in those problematic countries (e.g. Ukraine).

However, they were not just the foreigners who criticized the system: prospective employers who could not employ new foreign workforce easily also voiced their disagreement. The Visapoint discontinuation, then, was welcomed – the question is whether this stance is justifiable. The term reservation will still be in order with different means: telephone, email etc. Nonetheless, the problems with the capacity of the respective embassies or profiteering with the terms on their employees’ part will still be present as the history taught us before the Visapoint introduction.

A possible solution has been introduced by the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic which rules that an “impersonal” submission of the application (i.e. at a registry, via post or a data mailbox) is possible if the applicants are not allowed to file their application personally in a “dignified way in appropriate time”.

As it appears the Court shows the foreigners a leeway to have their applications accepted.