Czech Constitutional Court overturns fishing tournament verdict

The Czech Constitutional Court has overturned the sentence of a fishing tournament organizer who failed to pay out the prizes and spent the entry fees on repaying a debt. The case has been sent back to the district court for a new hearing.

Prizes that were never paid

Under the tournament rules, prizes went to the angler who caught the first fish (CZK 1,500), the holder of the heaviest fish (CZK 7,000), and the winners of first to third place (CZK 50,000, 35,000 and 25,000). However, the organizer used the money to repay a debt, and the matter ended up in court.

The courts could not decide whether this was fraud, misappropriation or something else: it remained disputed whether the money from the entry fees had merely been entrusted to him or had already become his property. In the end, the man received a 16-month suspended prison sentence with a 24-month probation period for misappropriation. He filed a constitutional complaint, claiming a violation of his right to a fair trial and of the ban on imprisonment for failing to meet a contractual obligation.

“It is unclear to the complainant when an entry fee becomes his property, whether he could use it to pay for expenses other than prizes, and whether he is obliged to return any surplus to participants if the costs of the tournament do not exceed the fees,” the complaint said.

Did he become the owner of the money?

The panel, chaired by rapporteur judge Martin Smolek, sided with the man: in its view, the courts never established whether the money had been entrusted to him or belonged to him. If a court itself is unsure how to describe the situation, it must acquit the defendant under the principle of in dubio pro reo — when in doubt, in favor of the accused.

“The courts interpreted the terms as a mandate agreement, which means that the complainant did not become the owner of the fees and the funds were merely entrusted to him. The Constitutional Court disagrees with this assessment,” Smolek wrote in the ruling.

The court concluded that this was a special type of contract, in line with the usual practice of organizing cultural and sporting events: one party undertakes to hold the event, the other pays, and any funds the organizer does not spend are not returned to participants. Participants paid to take part in the tournament, not simply to hand over money from which prizes would be paid.

“The fact that the terms allow for two conclusions as to whether the complainant became the owner of the funds is evident from the courts' differing initial assessments alone,” the court added. If there was no other evidence besides the tournament terms, the man should have been acquitted.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz