Petr Hajn

Petr Hajn was born in Prague on 30 March 1935. His father had originally qualified as a doctor of law, and this strongly influenced his own choice of study. After finishing secondary school in the early 1950s he applied to read law but was turned down at first because he did not have a working class background. He was accepted at his second attempt and studied at the Faculty of Law of Charles University from 1954 to 1959.

After graduating he was assigned to the legal department of the national enterprise Skoda Works in Plzen, where he worked as a company lawyer and gained practical experience of economic and commercial law. He was awarded the degree of doctor of law (JUDr.) in 1967.

In 1972 Hajn began teaching at the re-established Faculty of Law in Brno, part of Jan Evangelista Purkyne University until 1990 and then Masaryk University. After three years in the civil law department he founded a separate department of economic law, later renamed the department of commercial law, and headed it from its foundation until 2001. He was appointed associate professor in 1974 and professor in 1982, and served as vice dean and, in the 1980s, as vice rector of the university. He later held the title of emeritus professor.

Hajn published more than 300 scholarly articles and conference papers in the Czech Republic and abroad. His monographs, among them works on the law of unfair competition, competitive conduct and unfair competition law, and how to conclude commercial contracts, became basic sources for legal theory and practice. He also wrote on subjects that were neglected or considered taboo in his time, including legal services within enterprises, the effectiveness of law, economic risk and legal liability. His faculty credited him with laying the foundations of Czech competition law, with links into the protection of personality rights in civil law.

Beyond the university he chaired the Czech group of the International League of Competition Law and the arbitration commission of the Council for Advertising, was a member of the Ethics Panel of Czech Television, the appeals commission of the Industrial Property Office and the Legislative Council of the Government, served as an arbitrator at the Arbitration Court attached to the Czech Chamber of Commerce and Agricultural Chamber, practised as an advocate, and sat on the editorial boards of Pravnik and Obchodnepravni revue.

Alongside the law, writing was a lifelong passion. Hajn published collections of essays, including a light hearted book about how books are written, and his humorous legal glosses in the Bulletin advokacie and other publications won a wide readership. For his 90th birthday in 2025 the publisher Leges issued a collection of his columns titled Pravnikovo mudrovani. In 2025 he said he was working with his wife, a psychiatrist, on a book of memoirs.

Petr Hajn died on Tuesday 10 November 2026 at the age of 91. His death was announced on 11 November by the Faculty of Law of Masaryk University in Brno and reported by CTK, Novinky and the legal press. No cause of death was made public. Radim Polcak, vice rector of Masaryk University and a former doctoral student of Hajn, said he considered it great good fortune to have known him, and that Hajn had been the main reason he wanted to work at a university.

Hajn is regarded as one of the founders of modern Czech competition and unfair competition law and as a formative figure of the Brno law faculty, where he built and led the commercial law department for more than 25 years. His textbooks were used by thousands of students. He was named Lawyer of the Year in intellectual property law in 2008, received the Gold Medal of Masaryk University in 2019, and in May 2025 received the St Yves award for lifetime contribution to Czech law, becoming the 19th person inducted into the Czech Legal Hall of Fame, to a standing ovation.