Abstract
The Czech Republic is a country where skiing is at the top of all local sports, it could be said that besides hockey and football it is a national sport. As for recreational skiing, skiing is probably the most practiced sport, the data of the Federation (Ski Association) speak of 20% of the population, about 2,000,000 skiers.
All this is due to several factors, among which it is possible to highlight the geomorphological character of the territory, the geographical position and the appropriate climatic conditions. Another factor is the tradition of skiing, whose beginnings in the Czech Republic date back to the late nineteenth century, supported by the existence of the oldest skiing federation in the world (founded in 1903) and above all by the exceptional development of the teaching of skiing, which was introduced in schools of all levels as mandatory.
If we add to the enormous development and tradition of skiing also the general characteristic of this sport, that is a greater risk, with incidents on the rise, then a cocktail is created, which inevitably raises questions concerning the solution of safety. Ski safety is therefore at the heart of this report, which also aims to familiarize the reader with the current situation in the field of ski safety and the relevant legal regulations in the Czech Republic.
The report first presents the current data on the structure of the ski resorts (the length of the tracks, the number of ski lifts etc.), and then offers a brief historical excursion and, above all, the history of ski teaching in this country, the data on accidents and the interventions of the services of rescue. Subsequently, the state of the current legislation that can be applied to skiing, civil liability, compensation for damages, criminal liability and its regulation, followed by a brief summary of the other relevant regulations.
After that, the focus is on the role of the FIS rules in the legal system of the Czech Republic, followed by a comment on the state technical standard, in which the FIS rules are incorporated alongside other essential elements of the regulation. The next chapter deals with judicial practice and the question of legal assessment of ski accidents including an overview of the recent jurisprudence of 10 fundamental sentences, in particular those of the Supreme Court.
In the last chapter the prospects of legal regulation in this sector are outlined, the negative impacts of the absence of a special legal regulation that could contribute to adequately address the problem of ski safety, the historical efforts to adopt it and finally the realistic prospects of implementation of the ski safety law and its implementation. In the final part the reflections de lege ferenda are traced on how the source law should appear, what form it could take, but in particular what should or could be its content.
In conclusion, the author expresses the hope of presenting the law already approved at the next edition of this Forum.