The Value of Justice in Czechoslovak Criminal Law Norms in the 20th Century

Abstract

The authors focus on the legal regulation of criminal substantive law rules and its development in the 20th century in the territory of Czechoslovakia. Specifically, the paper focuses on finding the value of justice in the substantive law provisions and looking for its value in judicial practice. In the conclusion of the paper, the authors consider the meaning of justice in criminal law rules and compare its value in historical and current criminal codes. Justice is not legally defined as an institution or a principle, and therefore, it is very difficult to seek the value of justice in legal branches. The authors present a new hypothesis that works with all kinds of sources of law, which, in their interconnection and agreement, should provide a test to show the value of justice. The authors work with a specific type of criminal law – post-war retribution criminal law. However, the humanities are not exact as science, so subjective evaluations are always present. The second stage of verification of correctness is identical or very similar to the textual and contextual interpretation of the sources of law. The value of justice is not determined by a numerical scale, so only a comparison of specific cases can give us answers as to whether criminal law has been applied more or less fairly in individual trial proceedings