Czech Scholar Warns of Obstacles

Despite its recent shift towards democracy, Czechoslovakia still faces serious obstacles to reform, a leading Czech legal scholar warned a gathering of students, professors and community leaders yesterday.

In an informal 15-minute speech at Harvard's Center for European Studies, Vojtech Cepl, dean of the Charles University Law School in Prague, said that socialist lawyers are engineering his country's reform.

"The communists and post-communists are using the law to slow down the changes in this society," said Cepl, who is also a special adviser to the Ministry of the Economy.

Cepl questioned the Czech leadership's commitment to meeting basic human needs. "I think the most important thing is feeding the people and changing the economy... but I am in the minority on that," he said.

In an hour-long question and answer session, the Czech scholar expressed support for a movement by the country's ethnic Slovaks to split from Czechoslovakia.

"I was a divorce lawyer at one time in my life... and, in time, a divorce can be good for both sides," he said.