The Nitra District Court has turned down the proposal of the General Prosecutor’s Office to examine the mental state of Hedviga Malinová-Žáková through an examination requiring an extended stay in a hospital. The judge considers the suggestion premature and recommends examining her in an outpatient unit instead, the Sme daily wrote in its Wednesday, August 15, issue.
[On August 25, 2006 Malinová reported that she had been assaulted on her way to a university in Nitra, claiming she had been attacked because she was overheard speaking Hungarian in public. In the six years following the incident, Slovak-Hungarian relations grew tense over the handling of the alleged assault.
The police closed their investigation of the reported assault in 2006 and released a statement asserting that no such attack had occurred. Malinová was then charged with perjury and lying to the police in May 2007, but the charges have never been presented in a court of law and the case remains open with the prosecutor, ed. note]
The prosecutor should have threatened Malinová with a fine, according to the judge. The General Prosecutor’s Office has not yet announced whether it will appeal the decision. It stated on Tuesday that by lodging its proposal it only wanted to confirm or dismiss the claim of Malinová’s lawyer Roman Kvasnica that she suffered from depression and trauma following the attack.
The prosecutor first asked for records of Malinová’s outpatient treatment. The court issued an order but she refused to cooperate with the psychiatrists. The prosecutor therefore asked for a hospital examination based on the recommendations of experts. Kvasnica says, as quoted by Sme, that Malinová will undergo an outpatient examination with a doctor but she will not answer any questions. Penal lawyer Lucia Kurilovská does not think that Malinová will be fined if she visits a psychiatrist but refuses to answer questions. The prosecutor would halt criminal prosecution against Malinová if proven that she suffered trauma after the attack. Otherwise it will file a lawsuit. Kvasnica alleges that the case has been politicised.
General Prosecutor Office spokesperson Andrea Predajňová told the TASR newswire that psychiatrists were not able to examine her, as her lawyer kept interfering and advised her not to cooperate with the doctors. The lawyer stated that Malinová would not respond to questions that were part of the psychiatric examination. The prosecutor subsequently asked the relevant judge in Nitra to release an order to monitor Malinová's mental health in a hospital.
(Source: Sme, TASR)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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