Dobroslav Trnka (source: Sme)
Ex-general prosecutor, Dobroslav Trnka, will not be punished for his actions in the Glance House case, despite the decisions of two disciplinary committees that he should be punished and stripped of his position as prosecutor for the General Prosecutor’s Office.
The General Prosecutor’s Office silently closed the assessment of the steps he took in the case this August, arguing that it is time barred, the Sme daily reported.
Originally, Trnka was to be disciplined for breaking the block placed by the Special Prosecutor’s Office in 2012 on the transfer of the Glance House apartment complex in Bernolákovo (close to Bratislava) from its original developers to the Gapeja company, which has links to his crony, Marian Kočner.
If the original decisions of the two committees were carried out, he would also not be allowed to work as a lawyer, as a prosecutor who has been disciplined in this way can no longer work in advocacy, Sme wrote.
Twisted ways of justice
Disciplinary committees have twice ruled that Trnka should be punished but after his appeals, the Bratislava Regional Court has ordered that the case be re-started from the very beginning and that the General Prosecutor’s Office did not come to its decision by the legal deadline of two years, which elapsed in August.
Current General Prosecutor Jaromír Čižnár said that he does not identify himself with the result itself, but alleged that he was unable to speed the course of the proceedings.
Trnka has thus escaped punishment, Sme wrote, adding that disciplinary proceedings fall under the organisation and inspection department where both Trnka and Kočner's brother-in-law, Juraj Bartošek, work.
Special Prosecutor Dušan Kováčik has refused to comment on whether he would check into the work of his subordinates and their potential bias in Kočner’s case.
GPO keeps verdict secret
The General Prosecutor’s Office did not make public its August decision that the case was time-barred. It even kept silent about it when Sme asked about the Glance House scandal after the August session of the disciplinary committee. The verdict is not even mentioned in the list of decisions for that month – allegedly due to an administrative flaw.
“There is a typo in the date of the decision, when the year 2017 was originally stated but then, a corrected decision was issued,” spokesperson for the General Prosecutor’s Office, Andrea Predajňová, told Sme.
Sad ending for ordinary people
The Glance House case was concluded at the Regional Court in Bratislava on October 11. It found that the developers of the apartment block, the Čížs, a married couple, were innocent. In the past the Special Prosecutor’s Office charged them with fraud and Trnka expressed his conviction that they would be sentenced.
The end of the case still does not ensure that the ordinary people who paid advance payments for flats in Glance House will get their money back. The building is no longer blocked but it is now part of the bankruptcy proceedings of two entities, the Gapeja company and the OTP bank. Administrators of the bankruptcy proceedings must either agree on what happens with Glance House, or there will be court proceedings.
“If the building comes to the OTP bank we will get at least some money; I hope for at least half of the amount we paid in advance,” František Horváth who represents the damaged potential tenants told Sme.
