Recepce a reflexe „starého“ práva v demokratickém právním systému ČR
Reception and Reflection of “Old” Law in Democratic Legal System of the Czech Republic

Summary/Abstract: Judicial reflection of important historical events cannot be limited to simple documentation of historical facts and a sheer evaluation by means of contemporary law. Such a process comprises many legal and non-legal levels and is tightly bound to transformation of a society and a search for legitimacy and ideology of the state. Newly gained freedom enables us to return to tabooed legal themes after many years. Legal solution is supposed to help strengthen an official interpretation of history, important for internal stability and external integrity of a country. From this point of view, presidential decrees and restitution are not only legal but also political problems. Then, the time aspect of law, characterized by conflict of continuity of law and discontinuity of values, becomes a priority of such decisions. Moreover, law constitutes its own categories of time convenient for description and categorization of reality. In the interest of constitutional principles, political and legal decisions must be assumed to stipulate the degree of interference into contemporary legal state. In the same moment, a time boundary, which exempts older cases from revision, is essential for judgment revisions, because broader range of historical cases would lead to uncontrollable consequences. Unfortunately, judgements are supposed to confirm an official interpretation of history and also judicial procedure has only limited mechanisms for an authentic interpretation of history. The existence of prior factual basis and an inability to understand history cement myths. The impossibility to find a balanced image of history in judgements evokes new injustice, e.g. selective redress of fortune within restitution, and selective punishment within lustration.

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