BRATISLAVA, June 2, (WEBNOVINY) — Following changes in the judiciary, Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska (SDKU-DS) pushed through new rules for the prosecution service. The coalition voted on Thursday to approve an amendment to the law on prosecution service, introducing contests for prosecutor posts, publishing decisions of the prosecution service and canceling the institute of prosecutor candidates. Coalition deputies supported several changes to be incorporated in the bill, however Zitnanska says that they improve her amendment and do not change anything with its main aim of opening the prosecution service to public control.
The bill stipulates that decisions of prosecutors will be published on the Internet the moment criminal prosecution closes. This applies also to decisions of disciplinary commissions. Further prosecutors’ decisions will be published upon request.
Prosecutor general will no longer appoint prosecutors but they will be picked in contests. The six-member selection commission will feature three people for the prosecution service and three representatives of parliament. Commission members will be picked by drawing lots for six months. Parliament and the Prosecutor Council will elect eight candidates each to the database for three years. The Justice Ministry will have no representatives in the commission, as originally proposed in the draft.
Unlike in the original proposal, the Justice Minister will not issue binding stances but it will be the business of the prosecutor general who will do so based on a stance of a commission featuring three representatives of the prosecution service and three people from the Justice Ministry. Zitnanska made a concession also regarding appeals against decisions of the disciplinary commission, on which a court and not an appellate disciplinary commission will decide.
The amendment also cancels so-called negative instructions. A superior prosecutor will no longer be able to order a subordinated prosecutor to not file or to cancel charges, to not propose taking into custody, stop criminal prosecution or not to file an appellate review to the detriment of a charged person. The superior prosecutor will have to reason in writing taking a prosecutor off the case and publish this decision.
The Prosecutor General Office, the Supreme Court, several prosecutor organizations and the opposition have raised principal objections against the amendment . The opposition says that the coalition wants to usurp the right to decide on who will be prosecutor while regional prosecutors in Bratislava, Kosice and Trencin are concerned that the new wording of the law will enable to abuse the prosecution service for political goals. Ex-prosecutor general Dobroslav Trnka said that the law negates independence of the prosecution service and functional autonomy of the prosecutor general. He underscored in a personal letter to Zitnanska that the prosecution service is not an office of state attorney.
SITA