Acta Universitatis Carolinae Iuridica (AUCI) is the main journal of the Faculty of Law of Charles University. It has been published since 1954 and is one of the traditional law journals with a theoretical focus.
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AUC IURIDICA, Vol 72 No 2 (2026), 193–207
ArticleProtiprávny stav ako právna skutočnosť (k stati profesora Karla Berana)
[Unlawful State of Affairs as a Legal Fact (On Professor Karel Beran’s Article)]
Milan Hlušák
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/23366478.2026.99
published online: 29. 05. 2026
abstract
The article critically examines Karel Beran’s concept of the unlawful state of affairs in Czech private law. Beran argues that not only human conduct but also a state of affairs – namely harm for which someone is strictly liable – can be unlawful and function as a legal fact. He claims that this notion is necessary both for distinguishing compensable harm from mere misfortune and for completing a systematic classification of legal facts. The article rejects both claims. It argues that the category of an unlawful state of affairs adds no practical or theoretical value, because in strict liability unlawfulness does not operate as a condition of liability but merely describes its outcome. Harm is not unlawful because it violates the law; it is called unlawful only because the law assigns responsibility for it. The paper also shows that events and states cannot meaningfully be classified as lawful or unlawful in the same way as conduct, since they do not breach legal duties. The article concludes that while Beran correctly highlights the need to distinguish pure accident (misfortune) from harm attributable to human activity, this concern should be addressed at the level of normative justification for liability, not through the misleading concept of an unlawful state of affairs as a legal fact.
keywords: unlawful state of affairs; unlawfulness; strict liability; legal facts; harm
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Protiprávny stav ako právna skutočnosť (k stati profesora Karla Berana) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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ISSN: 0323-0619
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