Guilty Plea in Criminal Proceedings

Guilty plea in Criminal Proceedings Abstract This thesis analyses the guilty plea in criminal proceedings. It first presents the development and current form of the guilty plea under Section 206c of the Code of Criminal Procedure, explains the legislative reasons for its introduction, and examines the advantages associated with it, including how these objectives were reflected in the amendment enacted by Act No. 270/2025 Coll., effective as of 1 January 2026. The thesis then addresses the key pitfalls of the guilty plea. It discusses the risk of insufficient judicial verification of the facts, the impossibility of revoking the plea, and the significant restriction of appellate grounds under Section 246(1)(b) and Section 206c(7) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, also in light of the recent amendments to criminal legislation. Attention is also devoted to the position of the victim, who may lose the opportunity to assert a claim in a timely manner, and to the procedural inequality between defendants in situations where one enters a plea of guilt while another insists on full evidentiary proceedings. A significant part of the thesis focuses on the practical impact of the guilty plea on the evidentiary process at trial. It examines whether the use of this instrument undermines the principles of orality and...