K NĚKTERÝM OTEVŘENÝM PROBLÉMŮM PRÁVNÍ ODPOVĚDNOSTI

The concept of legal responsibility is counted as one of the most unclear, controversial and rather confused topics both in Czech legal theory and in the legislature. The disunity has been substantially raised by the recent Czech Civil Code declaring so called positive content of „responsibility“ unlike former negatively perceived „liability“. Some scholars argue that Czech legislature and language (and consequently, Slovak ones as well) are not reasonably able to discern between these two aspects („responsibility“ and „liability“) at all. This article strongly disagrees with this thesis and offers some rather traditional solutions. It criticizes inconsistent use of legal terminology in the Czech Civil code having got in contradiction with the announced legally-ideological foundation and one of the allegedly principal changes in the re-codified Czech private law. The envisaged change of terminology tends to be more confusing than helpful. The attempt to solve the purported Czech problem by introducing new concept in polysemous terms is called into question. From the practical viewpoint, there are more important problems of legal responsibility than its „correct“ naming, anyway, e.g. the basic principle of responsibility (subjective, objective, composite – mixed), bearing the burden of proof, forseeability of damage, multiple damages, the extent of damages in context with new technologies etc. These questions deserve more attention than purely terminological disputes.