Jan Hurdík

New Czech Civil Law in Light of Human Rights

Protection of human rights is an important element of private law in the Czech Republic. Over the past few years, there has been a large recodification of private law in the Czech Republic. The core law of the Czech private law is the Act No 89/2012, i.e. the new Civil Code. In our paper, we explain that there are embodied many provisions whose purpose is to protect human rights in the new Civil Code. In some cases, the drafters of the new Civil Code were inspired by the European standards. However, there are areas which, in our opinion, should be amended so that the human rights would enjoy more protection. In our paper, we cover several areas of Czech private law and highlight some areas in which protection of human rights is reflected.

The Double Face of Cost and Fee Allocation in the Czech Republic

This chapter addresses the current situation of the Czech law of civil procedure, which accepts and respects the principle of equal access to justice. In fact, Czech civil procedure aims to enforce this principle in practice. One of the preconditions for access to justice is an adequate solution to the financial demands of civil litigation. Here, the Czech system has been greatly influenced, first, by the continuing socialist and paternalistic conception of payment and reimbursement of court costs. This concept stems from the time of communism and is based on an organized legal aid for indigent parties. Second, Czech civil procedure is influenced by the increasingly important principle that private enterprise should perform a public service by facilitating access to justice. Today, however, the rules of equal access to justice are increasingly subject to rules of economic competition in the area of legal services. In addition, there are legislative changes (i.e., the re-codification of the whole private law) as well as changes in court practice (i.e., formal as well as spontaneous Europeanization of Czech private law) that have made the outcome of court proceedings difficult to predict. This unpredictability weakens the justification for the loser-pays rule and inhibits equal access to justice.