Czech Criminal Law in Motion

It also deals with the dilemma, whether the reform is being realized by the way of amendments or recodifications, especially after the adoption of the Constitution of the Czech Republic. The authors warn of the danger of unadequate haste in adopting new legislative projects. Both in substantive criminal law and in criminal procedure there were many parallel changes following the adoption of the Constitution, not only in the form of amendments but also in the form of preparatory work done on the new codes in both criminal law branches. The development ensued from the objective situation given by the needs of criminal law practice to react to the necessity of effective crime control and new criminallaw codes.

The paper also contains the basic features of the Czech Criminal Law Recodi­fication Project (May 1993), the criminal procedure amendment proposals (also of May 1993) and the characteristics of the criminal law changes made in April and May of 1993.

The paper is accompanied with the neceessary body of notes, referring to other sources concerning the Czech criminal law reform.