THE SPEAKER of parliament, Pavol Paška, is being asked to explain whether a submission date was changed on a draft amendment proposed by Smer MPs Maroš Kondrót and Andrej Kolesík after Richard Sulík, the chairman of the opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party, accused the speaker of having improperly done so.
Sulík claims that parliament received the draft amendment after April 17, the deadline for MPs to submit legislative proposals for the next session of parliament, and that Paška backdated the date of receipt so that the draft could be considered at the next session, Sme wrote.
Paška rejected the accusation and said that a parliamentary official had mistakenly written April 18 as the date of receipt of the legislation on the parliament’s website.
Kondrót and Kolesík attached a position statement prepared by the Finance Ministry to their draft amendment which was dated April 18 according to Sme, but Paška’s spokesman, Pavol Chovanec, told the daily that it was possible to add documents such as this at a later date. The daily reported that the draft bill would increase the powers of the state in pricing decisions involving natural gas.
SaS stated that it will request disciplinary action against Paška via parliament’s mandate and immunity committee and Sme wrote that if the committee finds that Paška committed a serious violation of his parliamentary oath it can recommend that he be removed as an MP.
Sme reported on April 25 that records from the Central Register where MPs must deposit their draft amendments for parliamentary sessions showed that the legislative proposal was received on April 17, 30 minutes before the deadline.
However, SaS MP Martin Poliačik said that his party will still file a motion with the parliamentary committee since “nothing has proved that there was no falsification”.
