Independent MPs Vladimír Palko and Pavol Minárik, who recently left the parliamentary caucus of the opposition Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) and set up the new Conservative Democrats of Slovakia (KDS), intend to submit a proposal for a constitutional amendment on proving the origin of property, the TASR newswire wrote on April 28.
According to the amendment, which is to be discussed at the next parliamentary session, the police will have the right to launch investigations into people's incomes, the value of their property and how they acquired it in response to a written notice or on their own initiative. If the police find that the value of the property of the person concerned exceeds the individual's verifiable income by 1,000 times the minimum wage, the case will be passed on to the Prosecutor General's Office.
If a court subsequently rules that cash, movable or immovable property has been accumulated via illegal earnings, the property will be confiscated by the state.
Prime Minister Robert Fico has also supported an act on property origin in the past. In 2005, Fico - then an opposition MP - gained the backing of 114 MPs for a similar law that blocked by the Constitutional Court.
This latest initiative aims to circumvent the Constitutional Court by means of constitutional amendment. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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