Criminal law: from detention to the end of the proceedings
Detention, charges, penal order, pre-trial detention, indictment. What will happen to you, which deadlines are running and what you can do about it.
Detention, charges, penal order, pre-trial detention, indictment. What will happen to you, which deadlines are running and what you can do about it.
The police may hold a person for 48 hours. Then they release them, or hand them over to a court. What happens in those hours tends to show in everything that follows.
02Pre-trial detention is not a punishment, it is a safeguard. A court may impose it only on three statutory grounds and only when nothing milder will do. But that has to be said out loud, and in time.
03A summons to give an explanation is not yet a charge. But what you say there can become the foundation of the whole case. Or the end of it.
04Anyone can file a criminal complaint, no forms and no lawyer needed. What happens to it next is not so simple. And a false accusation is a criminal offence in itself.
05A ruling opening criminal prosecution means it has started for real. You have 3 days for a complaint. From now on you have rights worth knowing.
06The court decided without seeing you. You have 8 days from delivery to file an objection (odpor). On the ninth day the sentence is final and nobody cares any more what you wanted to say.
07Driving under the influence is, depending on the circumstances, a misdemeanour or a criminal offence. The line is one per mille. The main threat is a driving ban, and that is what hurts the most.
08Not every criminal case has to end with a judgment after a main trial. The law knows ways out: an agreement with the public prosecutor, conditional discontinuation, settlement. But they have their conditions and their price.
09Nobody may enter a home without consent, and a search is an exception reserved for criminal proceedings, only on a written and reasoned warrant from a judge. Ask to see the paper before the door opens.
10Criminal proceedings revolve around the offender. Yet the injured party has rights of their own and a claim to compensation. They just have to raise it in time: at the main trial at the latest, before the taking of evidence begins.
11A European arrest warrant, an extradition request, criminal proceedings in another country. Two legal systems, two sets of deadlines, and usually only one person who understands it.
12Embezzlement is appropriating something that was entrusted to you: company money, a rental car, goods on invoice. The threshold for criminal liability is damage of CZK 10,000. The key word is "entrusted".
13A scuffle outside a bar, insults at a government office, a slap in public. Disorderly conduct is a crime that takes ten seconds to commit and a year to resolve. But not every argument is disorderly conduct, and the courts know how to tell the difference.
14"I'll kill you" in an argument and "I'll kill you" with a weapon in hand are two different things. Threatening is a crime when it can cause reasonable fear. Stalking, when it is long-term. Both sides need to know this.
15Driving during a driving ban is the criminal offence of obstructing the enforcement of an official decision. The courts deal with it daily, and the excuse "I didn't know about the ban" only rarely holds up. What looms is a new, longer ban.
16One punch and the other side has a broken nose. Intentional bodily harm starts at six months and the courts do not treat it as a misdemeanour. What decides is intent, the injury and who started it.
17A kick to a car, a broken window, a spray-painted wall. Damaging someone else's property is a crime from CZK 10,000 of damage; with graffiti, regardless of the amount. Often it is the expert, not the witness, who decides.
18Entering someone else's flat without consent, or refusing to leave. Typically an ex-partner who "still has the keys", or a dispute over a tenancy. Both unlawful entry and unlawful staying are criminal.
19Defamation is criminal when it is untrue and can seriously damage someone's reputation, job or family. On the internet the sentencing range doubles. But most disputes about defamation do not belong in criminal law, and the courts say so out loud.
20After half the sentence (for some, after a third) the court may release a prisoner, provided they have shown they have reformed and can be expected to lead a law-abiding life. It is a right to be considered, not a right to be released. And a disciplinary punishment in prison can ruin everything.
21An accident in which someone died is a crime even without intent. What decides is whether you breached an important duty, and whether the person who died contributed to the accident. The difference is between a suspended sentence and years in prison.
22An untrue statement in a loan or subsidy application is a crime even when you repay the loan properly. The offence is complete on signing, not on any loss. For business owners it is one of the most dangerous traps.
A few sentences are enough. You do not need to know the sections of the law or the right terms, and you do not need to worry about putting it badly. You will learn what you are facing, what to do next and what it would cost.
Your message is read by a lawyer bound by professional confidentiality. Nobody else.
You can write in Czech, English, Ukrainian or Vietnamese.