New Fundaments of the Czechoslovak Civil and Criminal Procedural Law after 1948
New Fundaments of the Czechoslovak Civil and Criminal Procedural Law after 1948

Summary/Abstract: The development of procedural law and the overall framework of the administration of justice after 1948 took in many respects previously unknown forms. First of all, the convergence of civil and criminal procedural law in some aspects (e.g. the role of prosecutors) is a characteristic feature of the period, whereby the elements of non-contentious proceedings were extended even to adversarial proceedings, as a result of which the principle of searching for material (objective) truth became a characteristic principle for both civil and criminal proceedings. The deformations introduced after 1948 included also the abandonment of a separate labor justice system and administrative justice system (from 1952) in Czechoslovakia, when, on the one hand, the resolution of labor law disputes was entrusted to autonomous authorities at workplaces, and on the other hand, the Supreme Administrative Court was abolished in 1952 as allegedly conflicting with the sovereignty of the people, who were deemed to rule through the executive bodies and offices. Paradoxically, the arbitration, which is traditionally based on extra-judicial dispute resolution, was significantly weakened – it was only allowed for international business relations. Instead, a special, state-controlled arbitration was created for national business and economic relations – so called state arbitration, or economic arbitration, as a special system parallel to the judiciary. Thus, all in all, the judicial power and its competences were significantly curtailed in the observed period – in favor of mechanisms controlled by the executive and the Communist Party. These deformations became even stronger after 1960, when socialism was allegedly reached in Czechoslovakia, according to the wording of the 1960 Constitution. Further development brought another simplification of procedural law, whereas the administration of justice was to a yet even greater extent entrusted to extra-judicial bodies.

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