Amendment to Criminal Procedure Code

Act No. 422/2002 Coll., amending and supplementing the Act No. 141/1961 Coll. on Criminal Court Procedure (the Criminal Procedure Code), as amended, and amending and supplementing certain other acts

The Amendment of the Criminal Procedure Code introduces certain new institutes of criminal proceedings, namely the possibility to achieve a settlement and accelerated investigation.

The settlement requires a consent of an accused person and a victim, and an approval of court or prosecutor conducting preliminary investigation. The settlement may be approved and a criminal investigation interrupted in case of crimes that are punished by a maximum of 3 years of imprisonment or 5 years imprisonment in case of negligence, if the accused person:

1. declares that he/she committed the crime and there is no reasonable doubt that such declaration has not been conducted freely, seriously, understandably and expressly, and
2. compensates all damage caused by the crime, or takes other measures compensating the damage, or remedies the harm caused by the crime otherwise,

and based on the nature and seriousness of the committed crime, the way the crime affected the public interest, personality, personal and material situation of the accused person, the court or the prosecutor considers such decision to be satisfactory.

The new legal institute of accelerated investigation is introduced, allowing the police officers to conduct investigation by themselves. The accelerated investigation applies to crimes, punishable by a maximum imprisonment sentence of 3 years, while such investigation has to be finished within one month from the issue of the charge.

The current Offices of Investigation are renamed to Offices of Judicial Police.

As a reaction to financial difficulties of non-licensed financial institutions and many injured persons in such cases, the Amendment modifies position of injured persons in such cases. The injured persons are liable to authorise their proxies and in case that the number of proxies exceeds 10, the court conducts further selection.

The chairman of court senate or a prosecutor conducting preliminary investigation may issue an order blocking the right to dispose with registered securities, in case such securities are important for a criminal proceeding.

A new chapter has been added to the Criminal Procedure Code - Legal Relationships with Foreign Jurisdictions. This chapter regulates extradition, enforcement of decisions in relation with foreign jurisdictions, legal aid or relationships with the International Criminal Court and Interpol.

This Act became effective from 1 October 2002 and some of its provisions from 1 September 2002.

---

Next: Amendment to Civil Procedure Code
Up: July 2002
Previous: Amendment to Criminal Code