Juridicalblog.net

Along the Defence Act, men have to serve in military forces for 12 months, unless they aren’t do that because of their health or other reasons mentioned in this Act. Such military duty starts from the age of 18 and finishes at the age of 60 and is exclusively a male matter. Women don’t have any military duties and they can serve in military forces only as a volunteers.
During recruit proceedings every man is taken into register in a regional military office and is considered whether is able for a military service or not and if so, he is assigned to a suitable sort of military active service like infantry, air force, artillery etc., so everyone has to obey the summons of such office and to present oneself to the recruit proceeding.
Along the Penal Code a man, who don’t come to recruit proceedings in order not to fulfil his recruit duty, or to put off its fulfilling, commits a crime called Not fulfillment of recruit duty and is threatened at least 1 year of prison.
There’re people, who refuse to come to recruit proceedings. In such case regional military office as a rule annouces it to police, which starts investigation and such person is punished during a criminal proceeding, if found guilty.
Crimes like this are rare, in spite of this I have supervised one recently. A young healty man, who wasn’t willing to serve a military service. received a citation to recruit proceeding, but he didn’t come to military office, so he was cited again but he repeatedly refused to come there, so he apseted his recruit proceeding.
On the base of military office’s announcement a policeman from a local police station questioned a suspicious man, who pleaded quilty, so a policeman handed the case to regional police investigator. He accused him of the Not fulfillment of recruit duty and questioned him as accused person. This man, as an accused, made use of his right and refused to submit to interrogation, he only said, that his accusation was true. The documents from the military office enabled to the prosecutor to send him to the court. There wasn’t a trial, but the judge issued the Criminal writ and imposed him a pecuniary punishment. Such punishment was accepted both the perpetrator and the prosecutor.

The Rule of Law in my country strictly distinquishes between crimes and offences. Crimes are more dangerous than offences.
A crime is a term of Criminal Law. It’s investigated and judged along the Criminal Proceeding Code by police at first, than prosecutor sends a prosecution or punishment motion to the court, where a trial takes place. During criminal proceeding the perpetrator, if found guilty, is punished along the Penal Code, even may be sent to prison.
An offence is a term of Administrative Law. It’s investigated along the Police Code by the police too, but after that police handed it to the local authority, which proceeds action along the Administrative Proceeding Code and punishes offenders along the Offence Code. Neither prosecutor nor judge takes part in offence proceedings. The offender can’t be sent to prison during such proceeding, he or she is usually fined.
Here are 2 examples which show differences between a crime and an offence in my country:
1.
- who steals more than 5 000,- Czech crown, commits a crime
- who steals less then 5 000,- Czech crown, commits an offence,

2.
- who assaults and hurts another person, commits a crime if the treatmet of such injury lasts longer than 7 days,
- if the treatment lasts less than 7 days it’s not a crime, but an offence.

One day two young unemployed men, who were heavy smokers, used to visit pubs every day and who didn’t have enough money for their expenses, decided to assault a middle-aged woman, who worked as a shop assistant in a remote gas station on the outskirts of a regional town and to rob money from there.
In the late evening they parked their car nearby. One of them stayed minding in a car with running engine, the other man entered the station wearing a face mask, holding a gun in his hand and asked a woman, who was there alone, to give him all the money. He repeatedly threatened her that he would shot her if she wouldn’t give him money.
His gun was fake, but it looked like a real weapon. This woman was terrified and handed all the money from the cash register over to him.
The robber gave money into a plastic bag and returned to the car and both men immediately went away.
The police managed to capture them soon. Both men were accused of the robbery, which belonged among the most dangerous crimes in my country. Perpetrators may be sent to prison for 10 years, so they had to have a barrister during the whole proceeding. The investigation was run by the regional police and both men were taken into custody. They pleaded not guilty at first, but later the man who was in a gas station, confessed to the robbery and helped to convict the other man, who completely denied his accusation and declared, that he hadn’t taken part of the robbery at all.
After the investigation was over, the prosecutor sent both men in front of the court. The trial lasted nearly the whole day and at the end of it both men were found guilty and imprisoned. The man, who pleaded guilty was sent to prison for 4 years. His punishment was accepted both the man and the prosecutor. The other man, who didn’t plead guilty even in front of the court, was sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment. His appeal was later rejected by the court of the 2nd instance.
I have to add, that there weren’t lots of evidence against them. Apart of confession of the first man, there was a gun, which was found in their car, clothes, which they were wearing during robbery and which they later threw into a litter bin and after the crime they started to pay a great amounts of money in a pub, which was unusual, surprising and striking as some witnesses told during trial. The weight of all these evidence was however strong enough for their conviction.
The punishment wasn’t too strict, because it was their first crime, they commited it at the age of 20 and the victim from a gas station wasn’t furtunately injured. I thing that the punishment of both robbers was adequate.
I’m curious what other people thing about their punishment. Was it strict or indulgent?

Along the Family Code, parents have to maintain their children during their childhood all the way to the time they’ll be able to make their living alone. This usually lasts till the age of 18, sometimes longer, sometimes the obligation to provide maintenance to their children finishes sooner.
Parents, who are divorced, usually live separately, so their children live with one of them and the other parent have to pay every month alimony, but there’re lots of parents, who don’t do that. They either pay alimony irregularly or don’t pay it at all. In many cases this caused shortage of money of a parent whom children are living with, which have to be compensated with the help of a local welfare institution, that pay financial aid instead of the alimony of the other parent. This aid is later enforced against a parent, who doesn’t pay alimony.
Along the Penal Code, parents, who don’t pay alimony at least 6 months, commit a crime called Neglect of maintenance duty. Everyone who commits such crime is threatened with a punishment from 6 months to 3 years. The Penal Code distinquishes between a person who doesn’t pay alimony and the one, who tries to dodge paying alimony. The second case is punished more strictly.
The crime like this, is very frequent in my country, so I regularly supervise investigation at least against 4 perpetrators every month, and so do all my colleagues.
The Penal Code concedes impunity to people accused of such crime, who pay outstanding alimony during criminal proceeding by the time the sentence is imposed by court, so a lot of accused do this and they are neither found guilty nor sentenced. Their case is stopped during a preparatory proceeding by prosecutor, if the owed alimony is payed still during investigation, or accused is absolved of the prosecution by court if the owed alimony is paid during trial.
But there’re lots of other parents who don’t pay alimony even during a criminal proceeding and are sencenced and punished by the court. Some parents are even repeatedly sent to prison.
A specific feature of this crime is that nearly everyone pleads guilty, but some of them defend and tell, that they didn’t have enough money to pay alimony. This defence is usually rebuted during investigation, only in a few cases is true, so it isn’t possible to convict such person.
In this contribution I’m not going to mention any case of a person, who doesn’t carry out his obligation to provide maintenance, because all the cases are quite similar. Maybe later I’ll mention some interesting or unusual case, if happen.