BRATISLAVA, January 22, (WEBNOVINY)- The government plans a police reform and also wants to reform the prosecution system. Interior Minister Daniel Lipsic (KDH) said in the regular Slovak Radio program ‘Saturday Dialogues’ that they are cooperating on the tasks with the Justice Ministry. He said that according to new rules superior prosecutor will not be able to block or stop prosecution. Lipsic specified that they want to ban them from giving negative orders to their subordinates to stop prosecution, to not file lawsuit or to not lodge a proposal for taking a person to custody. The system needs a reform because it is an linking element between investigators and courts and with the right of veto it can block anything, added the minister.
Lipsic’s predecessor, ex-minister of interior Robert Kalinak (SMER-SD) reacted by the statement that the “beautiful illustration of cronyism“ is now Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik who put at an advantage a company for which he had worked. “I do not have the information that the police are looking into the case. We have to start with ourselves,“ he stated. According to Kalinak, negative orders should not be simply banned but a legal model should be prepared to secure supervision by an experienced senior colleague in the prosecution system.
Regarding the police reform, Lipsic says that it will make a safer country of Slovakia. The minister thinks that Slovak police is not very trustworthy and underscored that this is also the opinion of citizens. He considers police trustworthiness of great importance for people cooperating with them in disclosing crime and resolving security situation. Moreover, when a police officer is evaluated according to statistical figures, it might happen that s/he puts pressure on a person reporting criminal activity in order to qualify it as transgression just to simplify work on the case. “Statistics opens a relatively big space for manipulation, said the minister
Kalinak thinks about the reform that it brings too many figures, assessments and red-tape. He said that each crime is subjective, which is the thing that a computer cannot process. He will therefore wait for the results and only then he will assess the reform.
SITA