Otakar Motejl

Otakar Motejl ( born September 10, 1932 in Prague, Czechoslovakia; † 9, 2010, Brno ) was a Czech lawyer, dissident and non-party politician.

Life

Motejl studied at the Law Faculty of Charles University, Prague, where in 1955 he awarded the degree of JUDr. completed. He then worked as a lawyer in Banská Bystrica, Kladno and Prague.

Between 1966 and 1968 he worked at the Legal Institute of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Justice, then from 1968 to 1970 as a judge of the Supreme Court of the CSSR. In the years of the so-called "normalization" he defended dissidents and other opponents of the regime, including the rock band The Plastic People of the Universe.

In the years 1990 to 1992 was Motejl President of the Supreme Court of the CSFR, then to 1998, President of the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic. In 1998 he was appointed Minister of Justice of the Czech Republic in the government of Miloš Zeman. On 18 December 2000, he was supported by the Czech Chamber of Deputies to the ombudsman ( Cz Veřejný ochránce Prav - Public upholding the law ) elected and confirmed in 2006 for another six years.

Motejl also took over after some thinking time was the Chairman of the Arbitral Tribunal in the case of the "Diag Human".

He died after a brief illness on May 9, 2010 at the University Hospital Brno.