THE SPEAKER of Parliament, Pavol Paška of Smer, the main governing party, has ditched his plan to scrap parliamentary deputies' immunity from prosecution. He withdrew his proposal on April 9 after junior coalition parties refused to support its first reading in parliament, the Sme daily reported.
Even though deputies from the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) and the Slovak National Party (SNS) were present in the parliamentary chamber when a vote on the proposal was called, they refused to actually cast their votes. Opposition deputies for the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) and the Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) also refused to participate.
