BRATISLAVA, October 9, (WEBNOVINY)- Bratislava attorney Ernest Valko was shot dead on Monday evening at his family house in Limbach near the capital. Interior Minister Daniel Lipsic held a brief news conference late in the night to inform about the lawyer’s death. The minister said that the police would inform about the case only minimally because of the ongoing investigation.
Valko was a prominent Bratislava lawyer who specialized in constitutional cases. He was a deputy chairman of the lower house of the federal parliament in 1990-1991 while in 1992 he became the chief justice of the Czechoslovak Constitutional Court. Since 1993 he ran his own law firm. Valko represented a number of state institutions under the past two governments of Mikulas Dzurinda, including the government privatization agency FNM and the SPP gas utility. He also won a legal battle in 1998 that helped Dzurinda’s SDK party remain in the running for elections and defeat the ruling HZDS. The last time he was the lawyer of Finance Minister Ivan Miklos whom he represented in the dragging libel lawsuit against former PM and SMER leader Robert Fico. In 2006 elections, Valko ran on the slate of the Civic Conservative Party Four years ago, the police detained Valko and tycoon Ladislav Rehak and charged them with extortion. In the spring of 2008 the prosecution was however halted.
SITA