Marian Kotleba (r) at the court. (source: TASR)
The far-right People’s Party – Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) of Marian Kotleba can continue in its activities, following a decision issued by the Supreme Court on April 29, which turned down the proposal of General Prosecutor Jaromír Čižnár to dissolve the party.
At the same time, the court did not consider the lawsuit an act of bullying towards anyone, as ĽSNS claimed during the proceeding, Sme wrote.
Neither Kotleba’s lawyers nor the General Prosecutor’s Office commented on the ruling, claiming they want to wait for the verdict to be officially delivered to them.
Was there enough evidence?
Čižnár submitted the lawsuit in May 2017, claiming that it is “an extremist party with fascist tendencies”, as the Denník N daily wrote.
The court claimed in the explanation of the ruling that since this was an administrative type of proceeding, it was mostly up to the prosecutor, i.e. the General Prosecutor’s Office, to submit proof. The court was supposed to consider the arguments of both parties.
“The court carefully considers everything revealed during the proceeding,” reads the explanation, as quoted by Sme. This indicates that the lawsuit was not sufficiently founded, and thus the court did not find enough evidence to dissolve the party.
The Supreme Court checked the documents and also read the party's programme, titled “10 points for our Slovakia”. It also took ĽSNS MP Milan Mazurek's racist behaviour, as well as the legal dispute concerning another ĽSNS MP Stanislav Mizík, into account.
However, the court cannot decide on these cases, only take a stance on them, the explanation reads.
Jana Zemková, chair of the Supreme Court senate that decided on ĽSNS, stressed that the political party can be dissolved only if democratic society requires, such as when a political subject uses non-democratic tools during a political competition.
It is important to approach the dissolution of a party very carefully. The act is an exceptional state intervention, also from the point of European legislation.
The court claimed that democracy is not imminently endangered, Sme reported.
Protests to be held
Before the start of the proceeding, a silent protest was held in front of the Supreme Court. It was attended by several personalities, including actress Zuzana Kronerová, analyst Grigorij Mesežnikov, columnist Marián Leško and Michal M. Šimečka.
Each held one letter of the slogan, which read ''Stop Fascism''.
Stop fascism (source: SME)
Meanwhile, several anti-fascist organisations that disagree with the verdict want to protest in response. The Anti-fascist Mobilisation will take place on May 2 in SNP Square, starting at 18:00.
Justice Minister Gábor Gál respects the decision. However, he stressed that ĽSNS is a party that still has fascist manifestiations, but in a more sophisticated way than in the past.
“It’s very dangerous for society, and I’m sorry that after various preferential polls, people have not learnt and have forgotten the recent past,” Gál wrote in a Facebook post.
