Pre-trial detention is the harshest thing that can happen to a person nobody has yet convicted. They are locked up, while the presumption of innocence still applies. That is exactly why the law sets strict rules for it, and exactly why they are worth fighting for from day one.
Three grounds, no others
- Flight risk: a reasonable fear that the accused will flee or go into hiding. A high potential sentence is not enough on its own; the court must point to specific circumstances.
- Collusion: a fear that the accused will influence witnesses or co-accused, or otherwise obstruct the taking of evidence.
- Preventive: a fear that the accused will reoffend or complete what they attempted.
Pre-trial detention is the last resort
The law expects that detention can be replaced: by a written promise, supervision by a probation officer, a financial guarantee, and on some grounds an electronic tag. The court must consider these options. But it considers what someone puts in front of it. A defence lawyer who comes to the detention hearing with a concrete offer (bail, a job, a home address, an undertaking) is playing a completely different game from an accused who turns up alone.
What can be done once someone is already in
A complaint against the detention decision, an application for release, a motion to replace detention with a milder measure. The court must regularly review whether the grounds still hold, and with each passing month those grounds grow weaker. Pre-trial detention is not supposed to be a way of making a person talk.
What this rests on
No advice on this page is an opinion. Each one has a section of the law and a court decision behind it. Click through, the full text is on Europaius.
Statute
- § 67 tr. řádugrounds for pre-trial detention: flight risk, collusion, prevention of reoffending
- § 73 tr. řádureplacing detention with a promise, supervision, a guarantee, electronic monitoring
- § 77 tr. řádua detained person must be handed over to a court within 48 hours, the judge decides within 24 hours
Case law
- I. ÚS 2438/25 (Ústavní soud, 15. 9. 2025)the grounds for flight-risk detention were not met; for preventive detention, a reasonable fear of reoffending must follow from specific facts
- 4 Tz 24/2003 (Nejvyšší soud, 20. 5. 2003)pre-trial detention is a measure of last resort (ultima ratio) and can be replaced by substitute measures under § 73 of the Code of Criminal Procedure
- II. ÚS 4089/18 (Ústavní soud, 21. 1. 2019)someone who reports to the police voluntarily need not have been deprived of liberty; the court examines the actual attitude of the accused
- I. ÚS 3634/17 (Ústavní soud, 16. 1. 2018)the 48-hour period from detention to hand over to a judge is assessed strictly, including time spent in hospital under guard
A different situation?
- You or someone close to you has been detained
- A police summons has arrived
- Criminal complaint: you want to file one, or one has been filed against you
- You have been charged with a criminal offence
- A penal order has arrived
- Alcohol or drugs behind the wheel, driving ban
- Plea agreement, conditional discontinuation
- House search
- You have become the victim of a crime
- European arrest warrant, extradition abroad
- Charged with embezzlement
- Disorderly conduct: a brawl, a pub, the street
- Dangerous threats and stalking
- You drove while banned from driving
- Charged with bodily harm
- Damage to property
- Violation of the inviolability of the home
- Defamation
- Conditional release from prison
- Negligent homicide: a fatal accident
- Credit fraud and subsidy fraud