(3) Personal relations, characteristics and circumstances due to which the law excludes
criminal liability, or it permits acquittal from punishment, a more mitigative or a more
severe punishment, may be taken into consideration only for that offender, co-offender,
instigator or assistant where such relations, characteristics and circumstances exist.
4. Special provisions on criminal liability for crimes committed through the
mass media
Criminal liability of a chief editor
Article 26
(1) The chief editor, i.e. respectively the substituting person at the time of publishing the
information, shall be criminally liable for crimes committed through a newspaper or some
other periodical publication, through radio, television or through film news, if:
1) the author remains unknown until the conclusion of the main hearing before the court of
first instance;
2) the information is published without the author’s consent and
3) at the time of publishing the information actual or legal obstacles existed for the
persecution of the author, which continue to last.
(2) The chief editor, i.e. respectively the substituting person, shall not be criminally liable if
for justified reasons he did not know about one of the circumstances listed in items 1, 2 and
3 of paragraph 1.
Criminal liability of the publisher, printer and producer
Article 27
(1) When the circumstances referred to in Article 26 exist, criminal liability shall be borne by:
1) the publisher - for a crime committed through a non-periodically printed publication, and
if there is no publisher or if actual or legal obstacles exist for his persecution - the printer
who knew about it and
2) the producer - for a crime committed through a record, a tape, a film for public or private
presentation, slides, phonograms, video and audio means or similar communication means
intended for a wider circle of people.
(2) If the publisher, printer or producer is a legal entity or a state body, criminal liability shall
be borne by the person responsible for the publication, printing or production.
Criminal liability of the importer and the distributor of the public information
means
Article 27-a
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