Last Week: MPs interrupt their summer break to amend the Penal Code. Again
And still it might not be enough, with EC warning that Slovakia isn’t protecting European money.
Welcome to your weekly commentary and overview of news from Slovakia. Coalition MPs were pulled back from their holidays to amend the Penal Code once more. It may not be enough, suggests a letter from Brussels. Regulations for obtaining residence in Slovakia have changed.
Last Week in Slovakia is taking a summer break in the coming weeks. We will be back in your inbox and on The Slovak Spectator website on Monday, August 19. To keep up to date on all the news from Slovakia, visit www.spectator.sk.
Justice Minister Peter Susko in conversation with Deputy Speaker of Parliament and former Police Corps president Tibor Gašpar, who faces criminal prosecution in the Purgatory case, during the parliamentary session to change the already-amended Penal Code.
The latest changes may not be enough
Changing the Penal Code emerged as a top priority of the fourth government of Robert Fico soon after it took power last autumn. The vast, wide-ranging amendment, drawn-up by Justice Minister Boris Susko and his advisors, was supposed to be passed last December and become effective soon afterwards – even before Peter Pellegrini’s presidential campaign. But following vociferous pushback – consisting of filibustering by opposition parties in parliament, nationwide street protests, warnings from the European Commission, and a constitutional appeal by the then president – the whole process ended up taking much longer than the government had originally intended.
More than half a year has since passed and the story of the amendment, which among other things drastically cut statutes of limitations and punishments for financial crimes, has still not reached its conclusion. Two weeks ago, the Constitutional Court finally ruled on a motion that the then president, Zuzana Čaputová filed against the amendment. It accepted some of her reservations, but the bulk of the changes were approved by the court.
But just before the amendment could come into effect, the coalition parties realised that they needed to change it once again. They had previously had to revise their own legislation, tasking Smer MP and former Police Corps president Tibor Gašpar (who himself faces criminal prosecution in the so-called Purgatory case, and stands to benefit from the changes) with filing an amendment to reverse a shortening of the statute of limitations for rape – a change buried in the original amendment that had provoked a strongly negative public reaction, and that the coalition was at a loss to explain or justify.
Last week, MPs rushed back from seaside villas and mountain trails to their parliamentary seats to pass yet another change – once again via fast-tracked procedure, which is supposed to be reserved only for special cases when the security or economic interests of the country are threatened, or in cases where there is imminent danger of a human rights violation. While all governments can be blamed for having occasionally used the fast track when it was not exactly justified, the current government has taken this approach to extremes – the Sme daily calculates that Fico’s Smer-led coalition has passed more than half of its laws so far using the accelerated, minimum-oversight procedure.
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