Marie Benešová (17 April 1948 – 11 November 2024) was a Czech politician and lawyer who served as Minister of Justice under Prime Minister Andrej Babiš from 2019 to 2021, having previously held the position between 2013 and 2014, as a part of Jiří Rusnok's Cabinet.
Early life Benešová was born on 17 April 1948. Both her parents worked in construction. In June 1966, she graduated from a secondary general education school, and afterwards, she attended the Faculty of Law, Charles University, where she graduated in 1971. After graduating, she worked at the district prosecutor's office in Kladno as a legal trainee before passing her judicial exams two years later and becoming a prosecutor for the same office. She worked there until 1991, working on general crime and later as a specialist in traffic crime. She then worked as a lawyer for the Supreme State Prosecutor.
Career From 1999 to 2005, Benešová was the Supreme State Prosecutor. Her dismissal as prosecutor is generally attributed to a quarrel between her and then Minister of Justice Pavel Němec. This occurred because Hamid Bin Abdul Sani al-Thani, a member of the House of Thani, was arrested for child sexual abuse in the Czech Republic but Němec interfered so that al-Thani was sent to Qatar instead for a trial. Benešová argued that this threatened the independence of the Czech judicial system and that he should've been tried in the Czech Republic.
In 2006, she ran for a seat in the Senate of the Czech Republic for Chomutov representing the Czech Social Democratic Party, which she lost. However, she was then part of the shadow cabinet as the Minister of Justice.
Personal life Benešová died on 11 November 2024, at the age of 76.
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