Abstract
The paper deals with a concept of interpretative doubt. The existence of doubt is the condition for application of the interpretative rule in dubio pro libertate (in doubt for liberty of an individual), the rule used in public law.
First, it introduces the rule. Next, it shows that the concept of doubt can be, and in the case law of the Czech Supreme Courts actually is, approached differently.
This inconsistency makes the rule manipulatable. The inconsistency concerns two aspects of doubt: (i) whose doubt counts, and (ii) at what point of the interpretative process doubt is evaluated.
The first aspect can be approached either by an internal perspective, which means that interpreter's internal doubt is decisive, or by an external perspective, focusing on doubt of addressees of the interpreted law. As to the second aspect, the rule can be applied at three different points of the interpretative process: at the beginning, in the middle or at the end.
Because the aim of interpretation is to eliminate unclarity, the placement of the rule in different phases of interpretation results in different scope of the rule. The final part of the paper proposes a solution of the inconsistency.
The concept of doubt should be approached by the external view, and the rule should be applied at the point, where the process of elimination of doubt by interpretation becomes unpredictable for the addressee of the law.