More than €30 million on legal services

THE STATE paid to its advocates more than €30 million during the past three and half years. Of the ministries, the most was paid by the Finance Ministry (nearly €17 million). Slovakia paid the most for its representation at international arbitrations, the recent analysis by the Slovak Governance Institute (SGI) suggests.

THE STATE paid to its advocates more than €30 million during the past three and half years. Of the ministries, the most was paid by the Finance Ministry (nearly €17 million). Slovakia paid the most for its representation at international arbitrations, the recent analysis by the Slovak Governance Institute (SGI) suggests.

Of the surveyed institutions, the highest sum, more than €4 million, was paid by the National Property Fund, while of the companies, the state-run Vodohospodárska Výstavba paid the most, up to €6 million for legal services.

“The report describes in short the legislation related to rewarding the lawyers, publishes the graphs based on the results of analysis of data from 2011-2014 and points to the specific cases which raise questions about effective distribution of public sources,” said Radana Deščíková, researcher and co-author of the analysis, as quoted by the TASR newswire.

One of the problematic areas is the observation of the law on free access to information and communication of ministries, institutions and companies.

“In our opinion some subjects have shortcomings when it comes to publishing the invoices and orders,” Deščíková said, as quoted by TASR, adding that in many cases these ‘publishings’ hardly observe the law, the description is general and lacks any closer details of legal services.

Moreover, the SGI also found some discrepancies.

The report is part of the project ‘How much does the state pay for legal services’, supported by the Fund for Transparent Slovakia of the Pontis Foundation, TASR wrote.

The SGI also plans to launch a website at which it will publish the main revelations of the analysis and will connect them to the business register.

“In such a way we try to depict the occurrence of specific people, advocates as statutory and authorised representatives in the system of companies and their connection,” Deščíková said.

Source: TASR

Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports

The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.

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