Tvorba a publikace judikatury

The function of case law inevitably correlates with its practical application. It is vital to define the concept of applicable case law. The thorough process of case law application inherently involves from a more complex perspective the process of publication of case law. The subsequent legal issues, such as availability or accessibility of the texts of case law as well as the system of the editing of court decisions, shall be transparently raised and described. A transparent process in publishing court decisions would make a major contribution to the function of the case law used within the process of application of the practical law. It is necessary in practice to distinguish, in the process of legal argumentation, the original texts of judicial decisions and the edited texts or abstracts. Similarly, we need to distinguish the process of merely disclosing the texts of the decisions and the special process of selective editing within the publication system. A tendency to apply specially modified decisions and abstracts of judicial opinions in current legal argumentation looms robust. The phenomenon of abstracts, artificially created from court decisions, can be perceived as a quite practical. On the other hand, it is crucial to emphasize the considerable level of subjectivity in the mode of their creation. Automatic blanket disclosure of the texts of court decisions via public (electronic) access should be an elementary practice administered by public authorities. It would strengthen the confidence in the decision-making process of justice and the rule of law in general.