Czechia

• The Constitution and the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, the highest law
• The Civil Code (2012, in force from 2014), the Criminal Code and other codes and statutes
• European Union law, which takes priority in its area
• Decisions of the top courts, which are influential in practice

• The Supreme Court for civil and criminal cases
• The Supreme Administrative Court for disputes with public bodies
• The Constitutional Court, which reviews laws and hears individual constitutional complaints
• High courts, regional courts and district courts

A master's degree in law, a traineeship of about three years with a lawyer, and the bar exam, followed by registration with the Czech Bar Association.

• The highest courts are in Brno, not in Prague.
• Individuals can bring a constitutional complaint to the Constitutional Court once ordinary remedies are exhausted.
• The new Civil Code of 2014 replaced a code from the communist era with one rooted in the older Central European tradition.
• Czech law has a strong link to Austrian and German private law.

Austria, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Czechia as: Civil law. It names the systems in order of importance.

The map colours a country by the first-named system, and shows both civil-law and common-law countries as “mixed”. It is a simplification, and real systems are rarely pure.

Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria.

• Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic (English pages)
• Czech Bar Association

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.