Prime Minister Robert Fico, chairman of the ruling Smer, said that his party is ready to elect a new general prosecutor as quickly as possible. Jozef Čentéš whom the Slovak president Ivan Gašparovič decided not to appoint, sent a constitutional complaint to the Constitutional Court (CC) in Košice on Thursday, January 3, asking for the new election to be banned.
Fico said, as quoted by the Sme daily in its Friday issue, that he would wait for the CC’s ruling, and if it does not ban the election, the parliament will hold the vote. Speaker of Parliament Pavol Paška should decide on it next week. Fico is inclined to a secret ballot and wants the future general prosecutor-elect to have the trust of other prosecutors. Meanwhile, prosecutors remain silent about the new situation - blaming it on the monocratic system in the Slovak judiciary, among other things. The only one who defends Čentéš is former candidate and prosecutor of the Special Prosecutor’s Office, Ján Hrivňák. Hrivňák argues that even Čentéš’s mistake (cited among the reasons for his not being appointed) of unwittingly shredding the testimony of Igor Matovič (Ordinary People and Independent Personalities-OĽaNO) cannot be considered grave enough to prevent his appointment, taking into account all the things happening at the General Prosecutor’s Office.
Čentéš himself claims, according to Sme, that the reasons for his non-appointment by president Gašparovič cannot hold, and they don’t fulfill the criteria set by the previous ruling of the Constitutional Court. The TASR newswire quoted Čentéš as saying that as long as there was even a theoretical chance that the situation could be rectified, he won't seek financial reimbursement. He hopes to see the Constitutional Court issue an injunction against the Parliament holding a new vote regarding the general prosecutor position.
[Čentéš was duly elected by parliament (under the former government) to become general prosecutor on June 17, 2011. However, the president has declined to appoint him ever since, ed. note.]
(Source: Sme, TASR)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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