GENERAL Prosecutor Jaromír Čižnár maintains that his election to his post in June of 2013 was lawful and that Jozef Čentéš’ rights were not violated in the vote. Čižnár’s statements came after a decision by the Constitutional Court, which received a complaint on July 23 by general-prosecutor-elect Čentéš.
Čentéš was elected by parliament in June 2011 but was never appointed by former president Ivan Gašparovič. Čižnár was then elected in June 2013 before being appointed by Gašparovič a month later.
“I was elected legally,” Čižnár said, as quoted by the TASR newswire on July 24. “My participation in the election did not violate the rights of Mr Jozef Čentéš. I don’t know what the decision of the Constitutional Court in this matter will be,” he added.
In his complaint, submitted back in January 3, 2013, Čentéš claimed that he was denied access to an elected post and other public offices under biased conditions and that his right to human dignity was violated by the president when he refused to appoint him. He remains a prosecutor in the General Prosecutor’s Office.
When Gašparovič refused to appoint him, Čentéš appealed to the Constitutional Court, and a series of subsequent complaints and countersuits submitted by both Čentéš and Gašparovič led to a stalemate in the court.
After being sworn in, newly-elected President Andrej Kiska announced that he was withdrawing all objections of bias in the case and that, “as a party involved in these lawsuits, I declare that I have no objections of bias towards the judges of the Slovak Constitutional Court and that I don’t identify with the objections of bias submitted by the former Slovak president”.
(Source: TASR)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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