Legal status of a minor and the Children's Ombudsman in civil proceedings

Legal status of a minor and the Children's Ombudsman in civil proceedings Abstract As the title may indicate, the main author's purpose is to address specific aspects of participation of a minor in civil proceedings, to highlight complications related to procedural (in)capacity of minors and to suggest solutions for the major issues, which the author sees especially in unsatisfactory representation of a minor and in disregard for the child's right to participation. Using concrete examples, it is demonstrated that current law does not need to be modified fundamentally in order to significantly improve position of minors as parties to civil proceedings. On top of that, in pursuit of livening up this frequent topic, the thesis provides a critical analysis of the Children's Ombudsman bill that may give rise to an entirely new office of the Children's Ombudsman, which already exists in almost all EU member states, however, Czech Republic is not one of them. Therefore, a brief comparative study of several European legislations on Children's Ombudsman will be conducted. According to the bill, the potential Children's Ombudsman's authority should apply, inter alia, to some civil proceedings. Namely, the Children's Ombudsman would be entitled to initiate or participate in vast majority of special court proceedings..