Prague, July 2 (CTK) – The first post-Communist justice minister, Dagmar Buresova, a former chairwoman of the Czech National Council and a lawyer for dissidents, died at the age of 88 this weekend, the Czech Bar Association (COK) told journalists on Monday.
After she retired from politics in the 1990s, she resumed the job of a lawyer.
After 1968, when the Communist hardliners regained power, Buresova represented over 100 people who were troublesome to the regime, which persecuted them in various ways.
Buresova represented writer Milan Kundera, journalist Ivan Medek, who later headed the office of President Vaclav Havel, and the mother of Jan Palach, who immolated himself in protest against the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.
“At the weekend, the First Lady of the Czech judiciary, Dagmar Buresova, the lawyers’ heaven. An exceptional lawyer, the first post-Communist justice minister, a chairwoman of the Czech National Council,” the COK said.
Buresova entered the post-Communist politics in December 1989 when the Civic Forum (OF) umbrella movement nominated her as the justice minister in the new Czech government.
In this capacity, she contributed to the transformation of the Czech judiciary until June 1990. It started with a reshuffle of the judiciary, a reform of the prison service and the drafting of new legislation.
After the first free election in June 1990, she ran for the OF to the Czech National Council (CNR) and became its chairwoman. She headed it until the 1992 general election.
As the CNR chairwoman, she took part in the talks on the new arrangement of Czechoslovakia between 1990 and 1992.
After Czechoslovakia’s split and the failure of the Civic Movement (one of the successors to the OF), for which Buresova ran in 1992, she left politics.
In 1996, she ran for the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) to the Senate, but she was not elected.
After 1999, Buresova worked as the head of the board of the Czech-German Fund of the Future. She was mentioned as one of the possible candidates for president in 2003.
In 2002, former president Vaclav Havel decorated Buresova with the Tomas Garrigue Masaryk Order for her excellent contribution to democracy and human rights.
The COK inducted her to its hall of fame for her life-long contribution to justice. In 2008, Buresova finished her work as a lawyer for health reasons.
Supreme Administrative Court head Josef Baxa wrote CTK that Buresova named him a deputy chairman of a regional court in the spring of 1990, which was his first post in the judiciary. “This was a time when judges could really love their minister. For her personality, expertise, grace,” he said.
Baxa said Buresova was “a brave woman with a clear past lined with not only professional successes but mainly courageous civil moral stances.”
Constitutional Court chairman Pavel Rychetsky told CTK that he knew Buresova for more than 50 years. “In 1969, we both were defence lawyers of magazines which were stripped of their registration by the state censorship. It was a hopeless action then,” he said.
Rychetsky said Buresova never gave in, fought until the end with a disarming smile on her face. He said he would miss her very much because “the ethos of the stellar hour of our nation was leaving with her.”
