JUDr. Zdeněk Kučera (1928)

I began working as a barrister in the worst possible time

Zdeněk Kučera was born in 1928 in Prague. During the war he and his schoolmates had to flee from school several times in order to take cover during air raids. He was helping to build barricades during the Prague Uprising. After the war he completed his studies at the Law Faculty, where he specialized in international private law. As he claims, in the period of the harshest communist lawlessness he tried to defend justice, and he also served as a barrister for farmers who were affected by the collectivization process. He did not get involved in the political trials, because he was still considered too young and untrustworthy for that. He spent the time of the Soviet invasion to Czechoslovakia in 1968 in the Netherlands, but he returned home to his family. He was teaching at the Law Faculty in Prague during the normalization era as well as in the 1980s. He did not face any problems in his job, but his children had troubles with being accepted to secondary schools. Zdeněk continued tea ... 

Defence counsel in a case of defamation of public official