The Role of Vaclav Havel in Czech Critical Legal Thought

ŠTĚPÁNÍKOVÁ, Markéta. The Role of Vaclav Havel in Czech Critical Legal Thought. In Rafał Mańko, Cosmin Cercel, and Adam Sulikowski. Law and Critique in Central Europe. Oxford: Counterpress, 2016, p. 206-218. ISBN 978-1-910761-01-4.

Basic information

• Original name: The Role of Vaclav Havel in Czech Critical Legal Thought
• Authors: ŠTĚPÁNÍKOVÁ, Markéta (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: Oxford, Law and Critique in Central Europe, p. 206-218, 13 pp. 2016.
• Publisher: Counterpress

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Chapter(s) of a specialized book
• Field of Study: 50500 5.5 Law
• Country of publisher: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• Publication form: printed version "print"
• WWW: URL
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14220/16:00091331
• Organization unit: Faculty of Law
• ISBN: 978-1-910761-01-4
• Keywords in English: Havel; Kundera; Law; Prague Spring; Law and Literature
• Tags: rivok
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

Each country has its own characteristic features of law based on its historical experience and Czech Republic is not an exception. Because of it Czech law must be tested even more carefully in the context of its past. The critique of law is a mirror of law itself so we necessarily need to know it to meet the complex requirements of the legal discourse. However, it is not only the purely legal critique of law which constitutes legal environment. During the period of Actually Existing Socialism there were dissidents who influenced legal discourse maybe more than the official legal opinion of the state. Probably the most important of them was Václav Havel, the later president of the Czech Republic. His point of view influenced legal consciousness during the period of Actually Existing Socialism as well as later, after the Velvet revolution. Of course, his opinion cannot be considered a legal one in the usual sense. But as for the critical legal thinking in Central and Eastern European countries, Václav Havel’s ideas contained in his dramas or essays are highly important because of the ban of any official critique of law during the communist era. The only possibility to criticize was to hide the critique into art. Even after the end of communism in Czech Republic, Václav Havel remained an important critic of the defects of our state, society and law. In my paper I will focus on Havel´s texts dealing with law in artistic form. I would like to prove and explain how Havel as an important European and international figure influenced legal discourse in Central and Eastern European countries.