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PAVEL CABAN
CYIL 4 ȍ2013Ȏ
and, in the future, it might be advisable to review relevant provisions of Czech
criminal law, drawing inspiration, for example, from the German Code of Crimes
against International Law.
In any case, these observations are only theoretical, since in the Czech Republic,
“there is no case law available regarding the crimes under international law”.
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As
stated in the information provided by the Czech Republic to the United Nations in
2010, “the attempts have been made to apply the subsidiary principle of universality
in practice, but these have failed to succeed (usually for reason of failure of the state
that had requested extradition to provide evidence sufficient for prosecuting the
requested person in the Czech Republic, following the denial of extradition; often
also for the reason of a lapse of time under the statutes of limitation).”
95
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According to the Information of the Czech Republic on the Scope and Application of the Principle
of Universal Jurisdiction, provided in April 2010 in reaction to the UN Secretary-General’s request
for the purpose of discussions on the topic “The scope and application of the principle of universal
jurisdiction” in the Sixth Committee of the UN General Assembly.
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The new Act No. 104/2013 Coll., however, also amends statutes of limitations in the Criminal Code
– the time between the commission of an offence, for which extradition had been sought but failed,
and the foreign State‘s request under the new section 8(1)(c) of the Criminal Code (see above) will be
excluded from the limitation period.