Problems and continuity of defence provided by state in criminal procedure

Abstract

The development of state provided defence and the institute of the senior advocate regarding the implementation of state provided defence qualitatively changed on 1 January 2009 when several legislations came into force providing that only senior advocates could and can appoint specific advocates for providing defence in a criminal procedure or, limiting the free will of the person conducting the procedure, specific procedure activities for providing defence are specified in the law, allowing the person conducting the procedure to invite an advocate only according to the advocate duty schedule composed by the senior advocate. The most topical issue of the year 2014 – continuity of defence concerning the appointments of the senior of sworn advocates (at the police, at the investigating magistrate, at the regional court when investigating magistrate examines the legitimacy of decision, at the prosecutor's office, at the court at three tiers of authority). On the one hand, the continuity enables to provide better legal assistance, because one advocate is able to manage the criminal procedure better both in its entirety and separate stages, but, on the other hand, it has to be taken into account that due to the work load of the courts and advocates, in most cases several advocates will be provided (not at the same time) for the person within the framework of one legal procedure.

Keywords

• defence provided by state
• continuity of defence in criminal