The Leader was convicted of two counts of negligent homicide committed through the breach of an important duty imposed by law under Section 143(1) and (2) of Act No. 40/2009 Coll., the Criminal Code, for which an aggregate sentence was imposed under Section 43(1) (statutory range 1 to 6 years). The important duty was derived from his status as holder of a trade licence for mountain guiding and of a professional qualification, which bound him to perform the service personally and in line with professional standards. His custodial sentence was suspended with supervision under Sections 81(1), 84 and 85(1), with an obligation under Section 85(3) to compensate the non-pecuniary harm according to his means during the probationary period, and he was banned from the activity under Section 73(1) and (4) (range 1 to 10 years).

Editor note: Section 85 was subsequently amended. With effect from 1 January 2026, Section 85(3) concerns publicly beneficial unpaid labour, while the obligation imposed on the Leader (to compensate the harm during the probationary period) is now contained in Section 85(4).

The Assistant, who held no qualification and no licence, was convicted of a single count of negligent homicide under Section 143(1) (up to 3 years), received a suspended sentence under Sections 81(1) and 82(1) and a ban under Section 73(1) and (4). The injured parties were referred to civil proceedings against him under Section 229(1) of Act No. 141/1961 Coll., the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Both defendants acted with conscious negligence under Section 16(1)(a) of the Criminal Code: they knew they could endanger the life and health of the participants but relied without adequate reasons on no harm occurring. The duty of care in the criminal case was anchored in the general duty of prevention under Section 2900 of the Civil Code (Act No. 89/2012 Coll.), and its content was filled in by mountaineering good practice, in particular the UIMLA recommendation of a maximum of six clients per guide, as explained by the court-appointed expert. On causation, the courts applied the established Czech doctrine that the causal link is not interrupted by a further contributing circumstance unless that circumstance acts as the exclusive and independent cause, and that the defendant's conduct must be a sufficiently significant cause (gradation of causation).

Core Rule: A person who, without qualification, takes over the leadership of a group advertised as guided and in fact directs it (distributing and checking equipment, briefing participants, deciding when and whether to start) assumes the responsibility of a leader and may be criminally liable for negligent homicide, regardless of being only the organiser's employee; an organiser who promises professional guiding cannot transfer his personal responsibility to an unqualified person.

First tour (27 July 2019; Austria, via ferrata Wildfrauensteig on Mt. Bosruck; difficulty B/C). The Leader held the Czech national qualification of mountain leader (Horský průvodce, granted in 2018), was a member of the Czech Association of Mountain Leaders and held the trade licence for mountain guiding, all of which entitled him to lead hiking clients but not to guide on via ferratas abroad. Through his agency he sold the tour to at least 22 paying clients as a trip with a professional mountain guide. At least three days before the tour he knew that he could not attend for health reasons. Instead of cancelling or informing the clients that only transport and equipment rental were included, he concluded a work agreement with the Assistant, who had no qualification and had only joined previous trips as a participant, and announced him to the group as the guide in his place. Clients repeatedly asked about the forecast of storms; the Leader reassured them and recommended rain gear, and the day before the tour he asked the Assistant to keep an eye on the weather.

On the day, the Assistant distributed and checked the ferrata sets, gave the briefing and decided to start the ascent although participants, people at a petrol station and a local resident warned of the approaching storm; he commented only that it would "hopefully miss us". He had no time schedule, set no order of progression, no lead or rear person and no communication within the group, which split up. He told the fastest group to wait for the others on the summit next to an iron cross during the storm and then hurried the group down the wet, exposed descent ridge. At about 15:45 the first participant slipped on wet terrain and fell about 150 metres to her death. According to the rescuers, the storm had been in the area since around noon and the group had started far too late.

Second tour (12 August 2020; Austria, Salzkammergut, via ferrata Drachenwand; difficulty C/D). After the first accident the Leader had been expelled from the Association, but he kept his trade licence and continued organising tours. He sold this tour to at least 15 clients, again promising his personal professional guiding, without properly informing them of the difficulty of the route and of the risks of the very hot weather. He let a participant with insufficient experience and soft indoor sports shoes start the climb, saying they would "manage somehow". She needed physical help from other participants from the start, and other participants repeatedly drew his attention to her difficulties. After an ascent of more than four hours in the heat, he gave her no adequate rest, did not assess her condition, did not rope her or assign anyone to help her, ordered the group to take off harnesses and helmets before the exposed descent, and ignored warning signs on the descent route recommending ferrata sets and roping of weaker persons. She fell to her death during the descent. Afterwards the Leader asked the participants to conceal from the Austrian police that he was a qualified Czech mountain leader and that they were paying clients of his agency. The Austrian police recorded the first group as acquaintances organising a trip via social media and found no evidence of third-party fault.

The Leader first denied responsibility, his counsel arguing that the weather should have been professionally verified and that the second victim's smartwatch data and medical records should be examined. During the trial he pleaded guilty, first to the first count and, only after all witnesses and the expert had been heard, to the second. He concluded settlement agreements with all injured parties and partly paid compensation, and the injured parties withdrew their claims against him.

The Assistant denied guilt throughout. He argued that he had acted only as an employee under a work agreement whose task was to accompany the group, take photographs and hand out equipment; that monitoring the weather and deciding on cancellation was agreed to be the Leader's job, who had told him the tour could be completed before the weather changed; that he had received no instruction to cancel and was not entitled to change the programme; that he had never claimed to be a guide; and that he had urged participants to descend carefully. He maintained that most of the alleged failures (group size, splitting of the group, absence of a licence) had no causal link to the death, that the victim was fit and well equipped, and that she may have slipped on gravel irrespective of the weather, so that the fall was an unforeseeable accident. Relying on the doctrine of gradation of causation, the presumption of innocence and in dubio pro reo, he sought acquittal.

First instance. The District Court accepted the Leader's guilty plea as consistent with the file, and therefore took no further evidence on his part (it rejected his requests for expert opinions on the Austrian weather data, on the smartwatch and on the victim's medical records as superfluous). It nevertheless added that both accidents happened because the Leader fundamentally neglected his duties out of greed, putting profit before the safety of clients who trusted him; that guiding in breach of good practice was his standard, not an exception; and that it was only luck that more people had not been harmed. It treated his position as holder of the trade licence and professional qualification as the source of an important duty imposed by law, which justified the aggravated qualification under Section 143(2): he had promised personal professional guiding, which his licence did not allow him to transfer to anyone else, accepted far more clients than the recommended maximum of six per guide, delegated the first tour to an unqualified person despite a high-risk forecast, and on the second tour knowingly let an inexperienced, badly equipped and visibly exhausted participant continue without any protective measures.

On the Assistant, the court found his account self-serving and in part a cowardly attempt to shift all blame onto the co-defendant. It accepted that he was formally the Leader's employee but held that he had in fact accepted the role of guide: he knew the tour was sold as guided and that he had been announced as the guide, and he did not tell anyone otherwise. On site he distributed and checked the equipment, gave the briefing, set the meeting points and gave the order to start, and participants and the Austrian police alike regarded him as the leader. The court-appointed expert confirmed that a person performing these functions takes on the responsibility of a guide; a tour without a guide is possible only if the clients are clearly told beforehand that the price covers only transport and equipment. Crucially, the Assistant had no instruction from the Leader for the situation on the spot: he did not contact the Leader about the warnings and decided himself to proceed, while knowing that he lacked the knowledge and experience to lead a large mixed group including beginners. His claim that he expected to finish before the weather turned was rejected as untrue because he had no time schedule at all. The expert identified as the two most serious failures the excessive group size and the decision to go ahead despite the forecast, and concluded that in such conditions the tour should not have taken place and the Assistant should have refused to lead it. The court rejected the defence's claim that the expert had called the fall a mere accident; the expert had in fact said that this question could not be answered.

Appeal. Only the Assistant appealed; the Leader's conviction for both counts became final on 23 November 2024. The Regional Court dismissed the appeal in full. It held that the "mere accompaniment" defence had no support in the evidence: had the tour been intended as unguided, clients would have had to be told so in advance, and a mere companion would not have performed the acts the Assistant did. It added that by deciding on the ascent himself, without consulting the Leader, the Assistant exceeded the scope of his own work agreement and thereby assumed responsibility for the further course of the tour and for the participants who trusted him. On causation, the court confirmed that the victim's slip on wet ground was the immediate cause but not the only legally relevant one; the Assistant's decision to start and continue the tour in deteriorating weather remained a cause without which the death would not have occurred and was a sufficiently significant cause. The suggestion that she slipped on gravel unrelated to the weather was rejected, as witnesses confirmed that it was raining and the ground was wet. The other failures (splitting of the group, no order of progression, waiting on the summit, hurrying the descent) were not the decisive causes but illustrated his complete amateurism. The court agreed with the Assistant on one point only: harnesses were not strictly necessary on the descent because it did not follow the ferrata, which did not affect his liability. It confirmed conscious negligence and found the sentence lawful and not disproportionately severe.

Sentencing. The Leader's sentence of three years, below half of the 1 to 6 year range, was suspended although the court stated that for two deaths an unconditional sentence would otherwise have been appropriate; it was decisive that he finally admitted guilt, settled with and partly compensated all injured parties, and that considerable time had passed since the deaths. The five-year probation (the maximum) with supervision and the ten-year ban (the maximum) reflected the gravity of the conduct and its direct connection to his work as a mountain leader. For the Assistant, his clean record was the only mitigating circumstance and he did not admit guilt; the 20 months, slightly above half of the 3-year maximum, with three years' probation and a five-year ban, were upheld.

Civil claims. Because the Leader had settled with all injured parties, the court did not decide on compensation against him. The claims against the Assistant were referred to civil proceedings because he had committed the offence as an employee, and for non-pecuniary harm caused in that capacity it is his employer who is liable to the injured parties.

The most striking feature of the case is the conviction of the Assistant. Although he was not the organiser, was formally only the organiser's employee and presented himself as a mere helper, he was held criminally liable as the de facto leader and banned from an activity for which he had never held any authorisation. To the author's knowledge, this is the first Czech conviction of a stand-in in comparable circumstances. It brings the Czech approach closer to the practice in neighbouring Alpine countries, where after an accident responsibility tends to fall on the most experienced person present who has taken on a leading role. The test applied, namely whether the person in fact performed leader functions (checking equipment, briefing, deciding on the start), is a useful practical guide for clubs and informal groups as well, not only for commercial tours. At the same time, the employee status of the Assistant meant that civil liability for the harm he caused rests with the employer.

The conviction of the Leader as such is not surprising: he pleaded guilty, the failures were numerous and repeated, and the second death happened after he had already been expelled from his professional association for the first one. The decision is nevertheless notable for several reasons. The courts used the UIMLA good-practice ratio of six clients per guide as the benchmark of due care, although the Leader was not an international guide and no statutory rule imposes such a ratio in the Czech Republic. They also expressly linked the aggravated qualification to his trade licence and professional qualification, which made the personal performance of the service a legal duty that he could not delegate to an unqualified person. The ten-year ban is the statutory maximum.

From an international perspective, the case also shows that a Czech court can deal with accidents of Czech groups abroad on the basis of evidence gathered by foreign authorities, and that the outcome can differ significantly from the initial findings on site: the Austrian police, partly because of the Leader's request to participants to conceal the commercial nature of the tour, recorded the first group as a party of acquaintances and found no evidence of third-party fault. The suspended sentences are typical for negligent homicide by persons without a criminal record in the Czech Republic.