Cyril Svoboda was born on 24 November 1956 in Prague. He graduated from the Faculty of Law, Charles University, in 1980. Between 1980 and 1983, Mr Svoboda worked as a legal officer for Transgas. He subsequently became a notary. In 1990, Mr Svoboda was appointed adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister for human rights, restitution, and relations between the State and the Church. Then, until 1992, he worked as the Director of the Legislative Section of the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic. Between 1992 and 1996, Mr Svoboda served as Deputy Minister of Justice of the Czech Republic. In January 1997 he was entrusted with the temporary management of the Legislative Council of the Government, having served as the Council's Deputy Chairman from 1992. In July 1996 he was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for issues related to the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union.

In the period from 2 January 1998 to 23 July 1998, Mr Svoboda served as Minister of the Interior of the Czech Republic, and at the same time headed the Czech delegation for negotiations with EU representatives on the conditions for the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union. From 23 July 1998 to 20 June 2002, Mr Svoboda was Chairman of the Petition Committee of the Czech Parliament's Chamber of Deputies. Since 1996, he has served on the academic boards of the Faculty of Law, Charles University, and the Faculty of International Relations, University of Economics, Prague. Mr Svoboda has been a member of the European Commission for Democracy through Law since 1994; since 1997 he has been the Commission's Deputy Chairman. Since January 2001, he has been the Chairman of the Committee for the Rules of Procedure and Immunity of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. He joined the Christian Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party (KDU-ČSL) in 1995. On 28 January 2001, he was elected Leader of the Coalition of Four, and subsequently resigned from his position of First Deputy Chairman of the KDU-ČSL on 31 January 2001. On 31 March 2001 he resigned as Leader of the Coalition of Four. On 26 May 2001 he was elected Chairman of the KDU-ČSL.

On 15 July 2002, Mr Svoboda was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.

He is a co-author of the publication Annotations on the Constitution of the Czech Republic and a textbook on constitutional law used at the Faculty of Law, Charles University. He wrote The Act on Out-of-Court Rehabilitation in Questions and Answers. He has published a number of professional studies in the field of legislation. Mr Svoboda is married and has four sons.