Defendants (criminal proceedings)

Czechia

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Czechia

A. Have I the right to appeal against a court decision?

Yes, you can challenge a first-instance court decision by an appeal; the appeal has suspensory effect. An appeal may be lodged against a judgment by which the court has approved an agreement on guilt and punishment only if such judgment is inconsistent with the agreement presented by the public prosecutor to the court for approval.

In your appeal you may invoke that the sections of the operative part which directly affect you are incorrect unless this concerns a verdict on guilt to the extent that the court has accepted your plea of guilt. An appeal must be lodged with the court that issued the contested judgment within eight days of the service of a copy of the judgment.

B. What other remedies have I at my disposal?

In criminal proceedings you can avail yourself of ordinary remedies (appeals, complaints, statements of opposition) and extraordinary remedies (applications for appellate review, applications for revision) and you can also propose that a complaint concerning infringement of the law should be filed.

A complaint serves as a remedy against a court order (resolution) and must be submitted to the authority that issued the contested order (resolution) within three days of the latter's notification. Orders (resolutions) issued by the court (and by the public prosecutor) can be contested by means of a complaint only in legally prescribed cases. An order (resolution) may be contested on the grounds of an error in any of the sections of its operative part or a breach of a provision governing the proceedings preceding the order (resolution) if the breach could have led to an error in any of the sections of its operative part. A complaint has suspensory effect only if this is expressly laid down by law.

You may file a statement of opposition against a penal order with the court that issued it up to eight days after the order was served. If a statement of opposition has been filed against a penal order within the set time limit, the penal order is automatically cancelled and the sole judge will order a trial in the case.

An application for appellate review (appeal on a point of law; in Czech: dovolání) may be filed only against a final judgment in rem of a second-instance court in cases where this is permitted by the law. You may file an application for appellate review on the ground that a certain section of the operative part of the court decision which directly affects you is incorrect, but only if one of the grounds of appellate review laid down by law is present. You must always file such an application through a defence counsel – your lawyer. The application must be filed with the first-instance court which made the decision in rem, within two months of the service of the decision challenged by the application. An application for appellate review has no suspensory effect unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise.

You are also entitled to file an application for revision. In general, revision of proceedings that ended with a final judgment or penal order will be allowed if facts or evidence previously unknown to the court come to light and those facts or evidence – either alone or in conjunction with the facts and evidence already known – could justify a different decision on guilt, or the punishment originally imposed would obviously be disproportionate to the nature and seriousness of the crime or to your personal, family or financial and other circumstances, or if the type of punishment does not fit the purpose of the punishment. An application for revision of proceedings that ended with a final judgment or a penal order will be heard and decided by the court which ruled on the case at first instance. The law does not set any time limit for filing an application for revision in your favour.

Moreover, you may propose that a complaint concerning infringement of the law should be filed; however, this extraordinary remedy is available only to the Minister of Justice and it is for him to decide whether or not such a complaint is to be filed. A complaint concerning infringement of the law may be filed against any final court decision (other than Supreme Court decisions) or any decision issued by the public prosecutor if the decision infringed the law or was made on the basis of a procedure vitiated by a defect. The law does not set any time limit for filing such a complaint.

C. What are the consequences of conviction?

The enforcement procedure begins once the conviction for a crime enters into legal force; at this stage, the sentence or the preventive measure is enforced and the related acts are performed.

If you have been convicted of a crime by a final judgment, you cannot be tried again for the same crime (not even in another Member State) unless revision is allowed.

The conviction is recorded in the criminal register and appears in any extract from the criminal register until the conviction is spent. This may affect your ability to pursue a particular profession, obtain a certain permit or licence, or be permitted to possess a weapon, etc.

Once your conviction has been spent, you will be regarded as if you have never been convicted. However, the law-enforcement authorities and some other authorities have access to what is known as a ‘copy’ of the criminal register; your conviction is recorded in the copy even after it has been spent.

i. Having a criminal record

Once the conviction judgment becomes final, an entry will be made in the criminal register where records are kept of convictions and of other facts relevant to criminal proceedings. Such information is kept for 100 years from the date of your birth, regardless of whether you agree to this or not. If your conviction has been spent, the information will no longer appear in your extract from the criminal register but will continue to show in a copy of the criminal register as described above. A conviction may be spent within the time limits laid down by the Criminal Code, depending on the seriousness of the conviction. These time limits range from one to fifteen years from the date of when your sentence is served; for some sentences, you are deemed not to have been convicted at all once you have served them.

If you are a national of another EU Member State, the information concerning your conviction will be made available to the competent authority of the EU Member State of which you are a citizen.

v. Serving a sentence, transfer of prisoners, probation and alternative penalties

Once a conviction judgment has become final, the president of the chamber will order it to be enforced.

If you have been sentenced with legal force to an unconditional custodial sentence, the president will send a sentence-enforcement order to the relevant prison and, if you have not been detained, you will be asked to come to the prison within the set time limit. Should you try to evade the service of your sentence, the Czech Police may transport you to the prison.

If the statutory conditions are met, the court may decide to postpone the service of your sentence, change the manner in which it is served, suspend the service of your sentence, decide on your parole, etc. The court may also waive the sentence of imprisonment or the remaining part thereof if you are to be extradited to a foreign country or removed (expelled).

A similar procedure then applies if court-ordered medical treatment or secure preventive detention has been imposed on you, i.e. once the decision under which the court-ordered medical treatment or secure preventive detention is to be carried out has become enforceable, the president of the chamber will send an enforcement order regarding the decision to the relevant medical institution or to the relevant secure preventive detention institute where the preventive measure is to be enforced, and will ask you to report to that institute/institution. Should you try to evade the preventive measure, the Czech Police may transport you to the relevant institution.

If the statutory conditions or the conditions laid down in an international treaty are met, you may be transferred to your home country or to another state to serve an unconditional custodial sentence or preventive measure if you so request and the state concerned agrees. An alternative sentence may also be imposed in a convicting judgment. Any punishment not involving immediate imprisonment may be deemed an alternative sentence. You may also be placed under the supervision of a probation officer for the purpose of monitoring fulfilment of the obligations imposed on you and helping you to return to the community and lead an orderly life. If supervision has been imposed on you, you must:

  • cooperate with the probation officer in a manner determined by him
    and implement the supervisory probation plan;
  • appear before the probation officer at times set by him;
  • inform the probation officer regarding your whereabouts, employment and means of subsistence, your compliance with the restrictions and obligations imposed by the court, and any other significant circumstances relevant to supervision by the probation officer;
  • allow the probation officer to enter your dwelling.

If a reasonable obligation to undergo an appropriate social training and re-education programme or to undergo appropriate psychological counselling programmes has been imposed on you as a result of a court decision, you may be included in a probation and resocialisation programme. You may also be included in such a programme if you meet the inclusion criteria set by the programme provider, without any court-imposed obligation to undergo the programme; in such a case, an agreement on participation in the programme may be made with the probation officer under the terms of supervision and the agreement may be included in the supervisory probation plan. If the programme is implemented as part of the prison sentence, your participation in the programme can be agreed with a specialist working with the Czech Prison Service.

You may also serve some of those alternative sentences in your home country or in another state with which you have ties, provided that the statutory conditions and conditions laid down by an international treaty are met and enforcement of such sentences can be supervised or otherwise checked. The scope of this option differs depending on whether the country concerned is an EU Member State or a non-EU Member State (the options being more limited in the latter case).

Last update: 20/03/2023

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