Protection of Children in Czech Substantive Criminal Law and Its Comparison with the Polish Legal Regulation

Abstrakt

Criminal law of all countries protects children’s interests in different ways, despite the efforts to harmonize some standards in this area made on supranational level. The article offers a preview of some specific and interesting manners, which are characteristic for the Czech criminal law as part of the effort to penalize acts directed against children and their interests. Interesting questions are connected with criminal offences, when a child is protected independently of their own will. Liability for some criminal offences against children, including some serious crimes, may arise also in such cases, when the child in fact initiated the perpetrator’s action. Although such attitude is justifiable in majority of cases, the article point out some situation, when the criminal penalization of act provided with consent of child would be inappropriate. Some problems may be identified also in construction of some qualified bodies of a crime contained in the Czech Criminal Code, which are determined to provided higher protection to children. The article offers also solution of problematic question, when a child victim could be considered as “defenceless” in the sense of body of a crime of rape. Finally, the article brings a brief comparison of Czech and Polish criminal law