BRATISLAVA, January 31, (WEBNOVINY) — The Parliamentary Constitutional and Judicial Committee has approved on Tuesday a draft parliamentary resolution proposed by SDKU-DS’ Milan Hort calling on President Ivan Gasparovic to appoint Jozef Centes as the new prosecutor general. Parliament elected Centes a candidate for prosecutor general in a secret ballot on June 17, 2011.
The committee also voted to turn down a milder proposal from KDH’s Radoslav Prochazka. According to his suggestion the parliament was to ask the president to finally decide on Centes’ appointment, either negatively or positively. Prochazka said he would most likely not submit his proposal to the plenary session.
In the draft resolution, parliament urges the head of state to respect its decision from June 17, 2011 and appoint Centes without delay in order to secure proper functioning of the Prosecutor General Office.
According to latest statements of President Ivan Gasparovic regarding the issue, he will not appoint Jozef Centes because he does not trust him. The portal www.inforoznava.sk informed about the conversation between the president and the municipal deputy from Roznava Ivan Kuhn (OKS) who cited the president as saying that he would not appoint Jozef Centes because he did not have confidence in him. Gasparovic opines that the issue of a new prosecutor general should be left up to the new government or parliament that will come out of the upcoming early elections in March. In an interview with SITA, the president argued that everyone who observed the election of the candidate for prosecutor general in parliament, had to perceive the fight of political parties to push through their candidate as well as the fact that politicians tried to amend the law during the vote, questioning of the vote with marked ballots, shredding of ballots immediately after the vote as well as shredding of the recorded testimony of Ordinary People leader Igor Matovic about the voting procedure by Centes.
After six months of efforts, the Slovak Parliament succeeded to elect the candidate for new prosecutor general on June 17. Jozef Centes, the ruling coalition’s candidate won the secret ballot when he received 79 votes of 80 MPs present. One lawmaker did not vote. Centes‘ opponent Dobroslav Trnka has withdrawn his candidacy as he believed the vote should only be held after the Constitutional Court issued its injunction. Originally, the election was to be an open one, but on June 15 the Constitutional Court issued the preliminary injunction preventing the public vote from being held until the court decides on the merits of the case initiated by a motion by acting Prosecutor General Ladislav Tichy, in which in late May he contested the legality of the bill allowing a public elections of the prosecutor general.
SITA