BRATISLAVA, June 16, (WEBNOVINY) — Speaker of the Slovak Parliament has convened lawmakers to elect a new prosecutor general in a secret ballot for Friday at noon. At Thursday’s new conference, Richard Sulik (SaS) remarked that the secret ballot complies with “the strange decision of the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic.” The vote will be suggested by a group of fifteen coalition deputies, as agreed by all coalition partners.
Sulik pointed out that the decision of the court is not binding for the parliament as long as it is not published in the Collection of Laws, but then again, the legislative body respects it and, therefore, the vote will be secret. During consultations, President of the Constitutional Court Ivetta Macejkova voiced no objections to the elections, said Sulik.
Lawmakers will vote to alter the election rules ahead of the ballot because they will place the ballot tickets in envelopes for the first time. Sulik reasons that this will ensure that the elections will be secret. Never before has the parliament introduced such measures to keep the vote secret, Sulik highlighted. “There will be envelopes and the secret ballot will really be secret for the first time ever and thus, SMER-SD deputies will be able to vote freely and not as their leader orders,” he noted. According to the SaS leader, the decision proves that the Constitutional Court is not independent and acts in compliance with political orders. He stressed that the electorate needs to know and has the right to know how their elected representatives vote. Sulik is confident about the outcome for coalition candidate Jozef Centes. As he stressed, the names of deputies that support him will remain a secret because there will be a special stamp and Sulik’s signature on the ballot tickets. The two candidates for the post, Jozef Centes and Dobroslav Trnka, were grilled by the Parliamentary Committee for Constitutional Law earlier this week.
The plenum of the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic led by its President Ivetta Macejkova on Wednesday accepted the motion filed by acting Prosecutor General Ladislav Tichy, in which in late May he contested the legality of the bill allowing a public election of the prosecutor general. Court’s spokesperson Anna Pancurova further reported that the plenum suspended the force of the contested provisions by issuing a preliminary injunction.
SITA