The government approved a major amendment to criminal legislation
On 13 November 2024, the government approved a significant amendment to the criminal law and criminal policy in the Czech Republic. Several changes have been made to the draft in the inter-ministerial procedure and amendments are already being prepared in the parliamentary clubs. It is therefore not yet clear in what form the amendment will eventually reach the statute book, but it is said to be the biggest change to criminal law in the last fifteen years, i.e. since the adoption of the current Criminal Code.
The main purpose of the amendment is to modernise and streamline criminal law (both substantive and procedural provisions).
As this is a large amendment, we summarise some of its main points.
Change in the imposition of alternative sentences
The amendment proposes that a financial penalty may be newly imposed for any offence, which represents a significant expansion of the possibilities for imposing it. At the same time, the possibilities of imposing a fine as a separate penalty are to be extended.
Similarly, the possibilities for imposing the penalty of house arrest are to be expanded and it is to be possible to impose it for certain crimes.
On the contrary, in the case of suspended imprisonment, it is to be restricted and it is to be possible to impose it only if the period of serving the sentence does not exceed 2 years (instead of the current 3 years).
Changes to the Criminal Procedure Code
Criminal procedural law is also to undergo substantial changes. Among the proposed innovations is the possibility for the prosecutor to stop the criminal prosecution in a situation where the evidence gathered is not sufficient to successfully represent the prosecution in court proceedings or the possibility to impose an unconditional sentence of up to one year by a criminal order (in the current legislation, an unconditional prison sentence cannot be imposed by a criminal order).
New penalties
The amendment also introduces certain penalties for natural persons that were previously only possible for legal persons. These include the penalty of prohibition to perform public contracts or participate in public tenders and the penalty of prohibition to receive subsidies and subsidies.
New crimes
The draft amendment includes the introduction of new criminal offences. In addition to the offence of “unauthorised activity for a foreign power”, which is intended to punish espionage for a foreign power, there is the offence of “misuse of identity for the production and distribution of pornography”. This is intended to criminalise so-called deepfake pornography, where someone’s likeness is used to produce pornography with the help of artificial intelligence.
It remains to be seen in what form the amendment will be approved by Parliament, but from our perspective it is a step in the right direction, which makes criminal law policy a little closer to the modern arrangements of other European countries.
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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or guidance for any particular case.