IF THERE is one thing the Glance House affair definitely does not add to the image of Slovakia, it is glanc (splendour).
It has long been known that former general prosecutor Dobroslav Trnka is friends with Marián Kočner, whose name appears in the ‘mafia files’ that leaked from the police some years back.
And Kočner lobbied heavily for the re-election of Trnka, in the process holding secret meetings and exchanging SMS messages with former speaker of parliament Richard Sulík.
But now the public finally has a chance to see that there was more than camaraderie behind Kočner’s interest in who fills the top job.
The details remain to be investigated, but even the temporary boss of the prosecution service, Ladislav Tichý, admits that Trnka broke the law when he signed a document which allowed firms close to Kočner to get hold of a building whose ownership the Special Prosecutor’s Office had frozen, pending a criminal investigation. So why was there no punishment for Trnka, who is now formally the number-two man at the general prosecutor’s office? Because “mistakes happen all the time”.
To sum up the current situation in the country – the boss of the Supreme Court has never explained his friendly phone calls with a Kosovo drug lord; the president refuses, without any reasonable explanation, to appoint the legitimate head of the prosecution service, elected a year and a half ago; the former general prosecutor is suspected of involvement in fraud, but continues to run the institution.
And the justice minister says none of this is any of his business.
Does all this mean the country is run by the mafia? The impression certainly outlives the first glance.
