Fundamental rights and freedoms are under the protection of the judiciary - Article 4 of the Constitution of the Czech Republic in the light of selected provisions of the criminal code
Abstract
This contribution reflects on Article 4 of the Constitution of the Czech Republic, which is implemented in detail by the basic regulation of criminal procedural law - Act No. 141/1961 Coll., amended several times, on criminal court proceedings (hereinafter also the "Criminal Code"). Several consequences follow from the constitutional caveat that "fundamental rights and freedoms are under the protection of the judiciary", which the legislator should respect in his lawmaking.
Criminal proceedings are always an interference with fundamental rights and freedoms, in which the state's interest in prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators of crimes is measured, on the one hand, against the interest in protecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, on the other. Attention is paid primarily to the issues of basic principles of criminal proceedings, as well as the issue of securing this judicial guarantee in the preliminary proceedings and the issue of the admissibility of appeals.