After the first days of the new week, we already know what the coalition will give in to the European Commission, the opposition and full squares that criticize the new criminal codes. From the amendments submitted by Tibor Gašpar, we already know that these will only be insignificant symbolic concessions.
And it will get worse. Minister of Justice Boris Susko admitted that they are only starting in the criminal agenda and in fact they want to try to revise the final judgments, specifically the approved plea agreements with the cooperating accused.
It also follows from the recent statements of Andrej Danek that they are just getting started and that they will only start making fundamental interventions in the running of the state after the presidential elections, because for now they are being held back by the presidential candidate Peter Pellegrini.
1. Žilinka did not say anything
In mid-January, Prosecutor General Maroš Žilinka met with Speaker of the Parliament Peter Pellegrini (Voice) and Minister of Justice Boris Suska (Smer) and said that he would present his own comments on the amendments to the criminal codes, which are in abbreviated legislative proceedings in the parliament. According to him, it is necessary to guarantee that the possibilities of the state in the fight against serious crime are not reduced.
Žilinka had to ask Pellegrini for his comments to be accepted by letter, which, together with the very fact of the shortened legislative procedure, actually just proves that nobody in the coalition was particularly interested in Žilinka’s opinion either.
On Monday evening, Smer MP Tibor Gašpar sent the amendment proposals to the opposition MPs. If this is what Žilinka proposed, and according to Parliament Speaker Petr Pellegrini, Gašpar also included his comments, then it is clear that Žilinka did not say anything and the state’s capabilities in the fight against serious crime will really be reduced, and very radically.
The opposition MPs only had one night to study Gašpar’s amendment proposals. On Tuesday, the constitutional law committee discussed them since the morning. This in itself is outrageous. Experts should express themselves in a wide-ranging discussion on such things as the state’s criminal policy, the amount of penalties, limitation periods, and penalty rates. Only they can judge whether such changes can help something. Among the judges, lawyers and prosecutors who have publicly commented on the text of the amendment so far, there were only a few exceptions who supported it. Others are already saying that there will be a serious threat to security and an increase in crime.
Defendants determine their own sentences
Another outrageous thing is that the criminal policy of the state is determined by the indicted former police chief Gašpar. In December 2021, the prosecutor of the Special Prosecutor’s Office filed an indictment against this current member of the Smer for organizing a criminal group in the police with the aim of committing corruption, abusing the powers of a public official or endangering classified facts. It is about the Purgatory case, where Gašpara is involved in 6 out of 20 acts.
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