OCHRÁNKYNĚ A PROSAZOVATELKA SOCIALISTICKÉ ZÁKONNOSTI? KONFLIKTY A KLIENTELISMUS V NEJVYŠŠÍCH ORGÁNECH ČESKOSLOVENSKÉ PROKURATURY
A PROTECTOR AND AN ADVOCATE OF THE SOCIALIST LEGALITY? CONFLICTS AND CLIENTELISM IN THE SUPREME ORGANS OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK PUBLIC PROSECUTOR´S OFFICE

Summary/Abstract: The public prosecutor’s office in the communist Czechoslovakia, similarly to other countries of the former Soviet bloc, represented an important power link of the regime. It used to be termed a guard of socialist legality, which should not only be protected but also enforced in every possible way. Theoretically it represented an autonomous authority, independent of state power and administration organs, homogeneous, centralized and monocratic organ of supreme supervision over implementation and preservation of laws and other legal rules by offices and/or individuals. In fact, the independence was illusory, primarily in relation to relevant organs of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. They approved within its nomenclature all personnel proposals for nomination of the head officials of Public Prosecutor’s Office, from the central level to regional and district prosecutor’s offices. But after a more detailed study of the topic, even the supreme representatives of the Prosecutor’s Office did not observe principles, the protection of which they should have secured. The malpractices and other misconduct sometimes were the reason or pretext for removal from office. There were often used also various “blots” from the past, kept secret before, or they were judged and presented more benevolently. The study aims at unveiling a little of the background changes at the supreme posts of Prosecutor’s Office and conflicts connected with them. The period of the so-called normalization is presented first of all, in relation to the development of the department during the existence of the federalized prosecutor’s office, from 1970 to the fall of the communist regime. We would like to document in the study a hidden rivalry in the system in the examples of personal changes at the highest levels of the prosecutor’s offices.

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