“A perpetrator is a person who has committed a crime. He is titled differently in the individual stages of the criminal proceedings, yet it is still the same person. During the proceedings before the court, after the date of the main trial is set, when the criminal case will be heard in court, the offender is titled as a defendant.” This is not an attempt at a judicial joke in the style of Jára Cimrman, but a literal quotation of a lesson posted in the corridors of the Municipal Court in Prague at the end of August this year.
According to the press release issued in this connection, it is “…a new infographic that, through a striking illustration, clearly and comprehensibly informs the public about the layout of the courtroom and the people involved in the main trial.” To put it somewhat more simply, these are pictures with text, among other things, on the subject of the defendant. But not only on this topic.
After the Union of Defenders of the Czech Republic drew attention to the text, which is very different from the principles fair trialthe defendant’s personnel profile improved slightly. Information about the public prosecutor, who “…presents the indictment against a specific offender as part of the proceedings before the court, conducts the indictment of the offender in such a way as to prove his guilt”. And at the end of the proceedings “…suggests the type and amount of punishment for the offender”. According to the iconography, the prosecutor is opposed by the defendant’s lawyer, who defends him in the proceedings and “…ensures that the offender will exercise all his rights under the criminal law”. So that the witnesses would not feel sorry for not participating in the hunt for the perpetrator, unknown the lamp of the right on the information plate it claims that “A witness in criminal proceedings testifies about the circumstances of the crime in question”.
The idea of expanding legal awareness, or reducing the legal unconsciousness of fellow citizens in this country, is certainly a good one. I just don’t know if its implementation should have been entrusted to someone who has about the same information about the principles of criminal procedure as I do about the sexual life of bivalves. What at first glance looks like an attempt at an absurd joke, and that is how it was primarily perceived by all those to whom I quoted the above, can change quite fundamentally if we look at it through the eyes of a defendant who comes to court, claims about to himself that he is innocent (and maybe even is), he read somewhere or someone told him that the presumption of innocence is one of the main principles of the rule of law and also of criminal proceedings. It is even said that in some document it is expressly stated that anyone against whom criminal proceedings are conducted is considered innocent, unless his guilt has been pronounced by a final judgment of the court. But even before he enters the meeting room, he learns that he is an announced offender.
It is certain that the content of this “enlightenment” sign has no influence on what happens in the courtroom, but try to explain it to those who do not have much knowledge about criminal proceedings, but they are simply afraid as humans, they want to defend themselves, and now they read something from which they get the impression that it is useless.
But even a person who is a perpetrator of a crime should have the right not to be a perpetrator, according to the above-mentioned principles, until the court has made a final decision about it. And even so that he would not be so titled by anyone until that time. For a change, one can also imagine those who come to court with a combative mood and the conviction that the entire justice system is one big scumbag, who are a clear victim. Therefore, it is their civil right to defend themselves as best they can. For example, kicking down the door to the meeting room or something like that. And then they read something that puts their paranoia on the horse.
As part of the notice sent by the Union of Defenders of the Czech Republic to the President of the Municipal Court in Prague, it was also noted that an objection to the unconstitutionality of a criminal trial taking place in a building where it is already advertised in advance that the object of these proceedings is the perpetrator cannot be ruled out sometime in the future. Higher courts, possibly the Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights, will probably come to the conclusion in such a case that even if the instruction was stupid, it had no effect on the function of the body. But if the rumor about something like this really reached Strasbourg, they might also laugh, but they will probably wonder if by any chance we in the Czech Republic, or especially in Prague, have not taken a step back towards socialist justice. Or rather, totalitarian justice, because if I remember, the last time I talked about this topic was in 1981 in connection with the information about the trial of the murder of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. He was shot by his own bodyguards, and when it came to the trial of those shooters, optimistic information appeared in the Czech press, according to which the trial would last three days and then the assassins would be executed. Consider how far we are today – in terms of information – further.
JUDr. Tomáš Sokol, member of the board of directors of the Czech Bar Association and president of the Union of Advocates of the Czech Republic
Illustration: White circle of safety, WC in Prague
