Vladimír Mečiar, during his 1998 TV performance. (source: TASR)
After 7,030 days, after the autocrat Vladimir Mečiar issued his amnesties and pushed Slovakia in the direction of a mafia-ruled state, where cars explode, critics are punished, and criminals go unpunished, the political wilfulness of Mečiar should no longer stand in the way of justice
The Constitutional Court responded to the main question of whether it is possible in a democratic state to accept that the same state abuses its power against its own citizens and to its own benefit and answered that no, this can not be possible nor is it acceptable.
Any other answer would throw the citizens of this country into an even deeper sense of mistrust and this country can bear no more measure of mistrust in the state, in the courts and in the justice system, without consequences.
There is no guarantee that the murderers and kidnappers will ultimately be punished. It is possible that the courts will rule that the guilty are innocent and some other self-proclaimed 'father of the nation' will decide to protect himself at the expense of the citizens he should be serving.
But in the end by throwing out the amnesties, the country has said that kidnapping citizens and the subsequent protection of criminals is not part of Slovak tradition.
