JUDr. František Duchoň (*1946) graduated from the Charles Law Faculty in 1969, (doctorate of law, 1981, and post-graduate studies in administrative law and state administration, 1982–84). He was a judicial trainee until 1971 when he became a judge in the Civil Law Division, District Court in Usti nad Labem. He resigned in 1978 then worked as a company lawyer for the District Institute of National Health and District Hygiene Station in Jihlava. In 1989 he obtained certification in medical law. In January 1991 he returned to the judiciary as a judge in the Civil Law Division of the District Court in Jihlava, and its Deputy Chief Judge. In 1995 he was appointed to the Supreme Court (later chairman of a panel of its Civil Law Collegium). During the 1990s he had professional fellowships in Canada, the Netherlands, France and Spain, where he studied Community law, the system for human rights protection, and the constitutional status of the judiciary. In 1997 and 1998, at the Council of Europe, he contributed to the drafting of the Charter on the Status of Judges in Europe. In recent years he has actively participated at a number of international legal conferences. On 6 June 2002 President Václav Havel appointed him a Justice of the Constitutional Court.