PRÁVNÍ SLUŠNOST (EKVITA) A SOUKROMÉ PRÁVO

The main part of the essay addresses the issue of application of equity in the decision-making practice of Czech and partially Slovak courts in civil matters. The author has interpreted the topic of the essay with references to the intellectual basis of perception of equity in ancient Greece and by Roman lawyers. The author comparatively suggests different paths followed by the legal practice in the search for justice in tried cases. The author notes the risks of a strict reading of the law and of judicial libertarianism. He points out that in the period of so-called communism argumentation by the principles of equity did not appear in the case-law and that a decent judge was able to find an equitable solution also in complicated cases. However, before 1948 in the common state of Czechs and Slovaks, the high courts worked with equity. Although the word “equity” is not a term used in written law of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, the case-law in both countries had returned to equity and used it as a method of the search for justice. The author analyses the achieved results and shows how these trends were taken into consideration in the Czech Civil Code from 2012. The essay is accompanied by a number of references to examples of decision-making practice.