Fundamental Rights in Czechoslovakia between 1920 and 1938: Their Doctrinal Theorizing and Judicial Application

Abstract

The article presents an overview of the problem of fundamental rights during the First Czechoslovak Republic and focuses especially on the role played by the fundamental rights catalogue of the 1920 Czechoslovak Constitutional Charter. Section 2 presents the 1920 catalogue itself, methods of specification and of limitations of rights (usually by particular laws) and postulates continuity with pre-1918 Austrian and Hungarian law. Section 3 is dedicated to opinions of Czechoslovak legal doctrine (mainly Czech authors) on the role of the 1920 catalogue. Section 4 examines the case-law of the Supreme Administrative Court protecting fundamental rights and tries to show that some fundamental rights were applied directly by this Court and that direct application sometimes leads also to a limited form of constitutional review of pre-1918 law.