Studies and education of criminal law at the Law Faculty of Charles University in the interwar period
Abstract
The text deals with studies and education of criminal law and criminal procedure at the Faculty of Law of the Charles University in the Interwar Period. The legal basis was represented by the legal regulations of the Habsburg Monarchy which had been adopted into the Czechoslovakian legal order in 1918.
The students had become members of the academia through imatriculation and they were subsequently recorded into the registry of the faculty. The studies took 4 years, included various compulsory and elective lectures, seminars and tutorials.
The criminal law had been taught from 2nd to 4th grade. The attendance had been checked each semester.
However, there were no continuous study duties. The knowledge had been verified by up to three theoretical state exams.
The criminal law had examined within the so-called judicial state exam. Such student, who had passed the state exams with good notes, could afterwards, had he submitted the respective request, pass three rigorous (strict) exams including judicial.
This way such the graduate gained the title JUDr. The number of students had been rising exponentially in the first Czechoslovakian Republic, ca. 20% of them were women.
The field of criminal law at the Faculty of Law of the Charles University takes pride in the honorary title of first female senior lecturer of law. In 30's of 20th century, there had been discussed; reform of legal studies at the Prague Faculty of Law which consisted in transferring the criminal law into first part of the studies.
However this reform had not been implemented in the end.