ABSTRACT
Ambiguity and complicated relations between legitimacy and legality significantly influenced public debates about law and politics in Czech society after 1989, there are disputes about the character of the former communist regime - if it was legal, legitimate or illegitimate. The problem of legality and legitimacy is even ironically mentioned in one play given in the National Theatre in Prague. Legitimation or legitimacy by vote is, of course, fundamental for any liberal democratic society and therefore all revolutionary organizations in the former communist Eastern Europe countries demanded free elections as the very first and crucial revolutionary goal. Political and academic debates after 1989 were very much absorbed by the problem of the legitimacy/illegitimacy of the new/old political regime and by the legitimation strategy in the new social and political condition. The theoretical and practical importance of the relationship between legitimacy and legality grows enormously at the moment of sudden political change and the reconstruction of legal systems.
