Czech Republic
Nejvyšší soud České republiky
Dr. Petr Angyalossy, Ph.D.
President since: May 20, 2020
Justice of the supreme court since: 2017
Career before being justice of the Supreme Court:
President Angyalossy was born in 1964 in Přerov. He spent his childhood in the Slovak-Hungarian border in Čalovo (today named Veľký Meder). Having graduated from High School in Dunajská Streda, Slovakia, he firstly attended socio-legal studies in Nitra, Slovakia. In 1988, after 2-year compulsory military service, he began his legal studies at the Law Faculty of Masaryk University in Brno which he successfully completed in 1993. He finished the doctorate in 1998 at the same University.
President Angyalossy was appointed as a judge in 1996 and as of that year he was a presiding judge at the District court in Olomouc and as of 1999 he was the presiding judge at the Regional Court in Ostrava, branch office in Olomouc.
In 2004, he became a judge of the High Court in Olomouc and then a presiding judge. At the same time, he acted as the spokesperson of the High Court in Olomouc.
On 1 April 2017 he was appointed as a judge of the chamber of the criminal division of the Supreme Court and as of the second half of 2018 he became a presiding judge of the criminal division of the Supreme Court.
Already in his first year at the Supreme Court, President Angyalossy was appointed as an ad hoc judge for the Czech Republic to the Joint Supervisory Body of Eurojust. Currently, he leads the working group preparing the Code of ethics for judges of the Czech Republic. The completion of the Code is expected in the near future.
JUDr. Petr Angyalossy, Ph.D. was appointed as the President of the Supreme Court on 20 May 2020 for the period of 10 years by the President of the Czech Republic, Mr Miloš Zeman.
President Angyalossy is married to his wife Ivana, and together they have a daughter, Eva, who works also in the judiciary.
President Angyalossy has advanced skills in German, Hungarian and Slovak language and basic skills in English and Russian.
He began his judicial career at the District Court in Most where he worked from 1979 as
a presiding judge of a panel. From 1982 he worked as a judge at the Regional Court in Ústí nad Labem, becoming a judge at the Supreme Court in 1991. Besides his judicial function at the Supreme Court, he was an intern at the legislative department of the Ministry of Justice between 1999 and 2004 where he assisted in preparation of important legislative changes in the area of criminal law. He has been a member of the Examination Board for examination of judicial candidates (since 1992) and for bar examination of trainee lawyers in criminal law (since 1996). Furthermore, he has been a member of working committee of the Government Legislative Council of the Czech Republic for criminal law (since 2007, having previously held a position of a member of Legislative Council 1998-2015) and a member in the editorial boards of legal journals such as Právní rozhledy, Bulletin advokacie, Soudní rozhledy, Trestněprávní revue a Collection of Decisions and Standpoints – Selection of the Decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, considered to be of the highest importance for the Czech judicial practice by the Supreme Court. He has been a member of the International Association of Penal Law (Association Internationale de Droit pénal) since 2002. Before the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union, he was a member of the Coordination Group of the Ministry of Justice for ensuring the institutional integration of the Czech Republic in the European Union. He has been a member of the Scientific Council of the Faculty of Law of the Masaryk University in Brno, a member of the Scientific Council of the Faculty of Law of the Charles University in Prague and a long time member of the Commission for the recodification of substantive and procedural criminal law, established by the Ministry of Justice.