Law of the Czech Republic
Written law is the basis of the legal order, and the most important source of law are: legal regulations (acts of parliament, as well as delegated legislation), international treaties (once they have been ratified by the parliament and promulgated), and such findings of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic, in which a statute or its part has been nullified as unconstitutional.
The system of law and justice in the Czech Republic has been in constant development since the 1989 regime change.
[9] The most important treaty in this category is the Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
In spite of numerous amendments made since 1989, it still conformed to the communist ideology, oriented on punishment of perceived enemies of the socialist regime.
The main change introduced by the code was transition from material to formal conception of criminal offence.
Another thing the lawyers drafting the 2009 code had in mind, and expressed it in the area of sentencing tariffs, was a new balance of punishment against rehabilitation effect on the criminal.
[12] These are not normally dealt with by the courts of law, but rather punished either by the police on the spot, or through a procedure in front of a committee at the local or municipal authority, or sometimes other administration body.
The second regulates family law – e.g. the institute of marriage and the rights and obligations of husband and wife, parents and children.
[18] The civil code regulation effective since 1 January 2014 is a result of eleven years of work of the recodification committee of the Ministry of Justice.
This system is largely based on judiciary's own interpretation of the Constitution, arguing that it gives citizens predictability and fairness.
[22] In Czech lands, the process of 'codification' dates back to the era of enlightened absolutism, when they were a core part of the Austrian Empire.
Reforms of government were to a large extent the work of empress Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II, who participated in creating the first civil code of the country in 1787, called Josephinisches Gesetzbuch.
ABGB was received in 1918 by Czechoslovakia, among other successor states, but only for Czech lands (Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia), while Slovakia kept the customary law of Hungary.
In 1918, the Interim Constitution of Czechoslovakia has been enacted hastily, establishing the republic with its president and temporary parliament.
In 1948, the so-called Ninth-of-May Constitution was enacted after the communist coup – putiatively some democratic institutions and nominal human rights, and even notions of, for example an "independent" judiciary though the political reality of the country departed from it radically.
Further radical modifications were enacted after the regime change of 1989, but they turned out to be short-lived, as in 1992 the Constitution of the Czech Republic has been promulgated after the division of Czechoslovakia, and entered into force in 1993.
