Editing Hate crime (section)

====Czech Republic====
The Czech legislation finds its constitutional basis in the principles of equality and non-discrimination contained in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Basic Freedoms. From there, we can trace two basic lines of protection against hate-motivated incidents: one passes through criminal law, the other through civil law.
The current Czech criminal legislation has implications both for decisions about guilt (affecting the decision whether to find a defendant guilty or not guilty) and decisions concerning sentencing (affecting the extent of the punishment imposed). It has three levels, to wit:
* a '''circumstance determining whether an act is a crime''' – hate motivation is included in the basic constituent elements. If hate motivation is not proven, a conviction for a hate crime is not possible.
* a '''circumstance determining the imposition of a higher penalty''' – hate motivation is included in the qualified constituent elements for some types of crimes (murder, bodily harm). If hate motivation is not proven, the penalty is imposed according to the scale specified for the basic constituent elements of the crime.
* '''general aggravating circumstance''' – the court is obligated to take the hate motivation into account as a general aggravating circumstance and determines the amount of penalty to impose. Nevertheless, it is not possible to add together a general aggravating circumstance and a circumstance determining the imposition of a higher penalty. (see Annex for details)
Current criminal legislation does not provide for special penalties for acts that target another by reason of his sexual orientation, age or health status. Only the constituent elements of the criminal offence of Incitement to hatred towards a group of persons or to the curtailment of their rights and freedoms and general aggravating circumstances include attacking a so-called different group of people. Such a group of people can then, of course, be also defined by sexual orientation, age or health status. A certain disparity has thus been created between, on the one hand, those groups of people who are victimized by reason of their skin color, faith, nationality, ethnicity or political persuasion and enjoy increased protection, and, on the other hand, those groups that are victimized by reason of their sexual orientation, age or health status and are not granted increased protection. This gap in protection against attacks motivated by the victim's sexual orientation, age or health status cannot be successfully bridged by interpretation. Interpretation by analogy is inadmissible in criminal law, sanctionable motivations being exhaustively enumerated.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.in-ius.cz/dwn/zprava-o-nzn2011/report-web.pdf |title=Zpráva o násilí z nenávisti v České republice za rok 2011 |access-date=11 November 2012 |archive-date=11 February 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140211152949/http://www.in-ius.cz/dwn/zprava-o-nzn2011/report-web.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>