Formal Burden of Proof of Public Prosecutor in Criminal Proceedings

The legal concept of formal burden of proof of public prosecutor has been discussed for more than 17 years of legislative work on the new Criminal Procedure Code and an increased attention was also paid to it before by the legal science, at the same time with the enforcement of adversary elements of court proceedings. The legal concept in question was established and developed as part of the Anglo-Saxon type of criminal proceedings where trial is based on a dispute between the parties. This involves the exclusive procedural responsibility of public prosecutor to clarify the facts relevant to the indictment filed. Although it is possible to give a brief description of the legal concept in question in a single sentence, its enactment would affect the overall nature of the proceedings before the court and would also be reflected in other stages of the criminal proceedings. The aim of the dissertation was to analyse the prerequisites and consequences of the enactment of the formal burden of proof of public prosecutor in the Czech criminal proceedings. Given the origin of the legal concept, the crucial question was whether its adoption would necessarily constitute a total departure from the legal principles which the existing Criminal Procedure Code is based on or whether it is possible and appropriate..