MfD: Klaus' amnesty highlights shortcomings in Czech legal system

Prague, Jan 9 (CTK) - The amnesty declared by President Vaclav Klaus, which also halts the prosecution in the cases that has lasted for more than eight years, has highlighted shortcomings in the Czech legal order along with the state's failure to enforce law, Vaclav Vlk says in daily Mlada fronta Dnes Wednesday.

Even if the lengthy proceedings were finally brought to an end, the possible punishments would no longer have the desired effect for either the damaged parties or the perpetrators, Vlk writes.

He refers to the broad amnesty Klaus declared on New Year, which pardons people convicted of minor offences and halts the prosecution in long-lasting cases, many of which involve suspected corruption and big economic crime.

People have voiced indignation at the amnesty as an immoral decision, Klaus's worst in his capacity as president. However, it is actually neither Klaus nor the amnesty what they unwittingly criticise, Vlk writes.

All who criticise Klaus and his aides who advised him on the amnesty seem to forget that the only sense of amnesty is an act of mercy granted mainly to those who do not deserve it, Vlk says.

By declaring the amnesty, Klaus highlighted fundamental shortcomings of the Czech and also European legal order, Vlk points out.

The most striking shortcoming is clearly the fact that in the case of petty crimes, the Czechs system of punishments knows only the softer suspended sentence and the tougher prison sentence from six to 12 months, Vlk writes.

It is evident that in these cases suspended sentences solve nothing while the prison sentences from six to 12 months, on the contrary, lead to the delinquents turning into experienced criminals and probable potential repeat offenders while in prison, Vlk points out.

By sending petty criminals to prison, the society permanently creates a prison population that is expensive to finance and that further harms the state by not paying taxes and later continuing to steal. Almost 8000 people is really too high a number, Vlk writes, referring to the number of inmates to be released from prison as a result of Klaus's amnesty.

Why could not the Czech judiciary reintroduce the reasonable strategy of punishing petty thefts and breach of the peace with a week or two in prison, sentences that were usual in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy? Such punishments were really correctional and deterring, but not as long as to enable the convicts to improve their criminal skills in jail, Vlk writes.

Short correctional sentences are known and applied even in the USA, where prison sentences are otherwise far from mild, he adds.

Even more amusing is the critics' indignation at Klaus's decision to halt criminal prosecution lasting more than eight years. The eight-year period is not meant from the moment when the crime occurred or when the police launched the investigation, but from the moment when the police found a suspect and accused him/her, Vlk writes.

It would be understandable if the prosecution in two or three criminal cases from the early 1990s had taken so much time as the state authorities needed time to learn handling such [then new types of] cases. However, it is hard to understand why a number of such proceedings, no matter how complex, have dragged on up until now in a situation where the state has thousands of policemen, clerks and other personnel to enforce law, Vlk writes.

The poor work of the Czech law enforcement bodies and the reasons behind the protracted proceedings are known but this is no excuse. On the contrary, it shows that the Czechs have got accustomed to tolerating the state's incapability of enforcing law, Vlk writes.

In addition, the punishment of perpetrators more than eight years after they committed the crime amounts to mocking both the victims and the perpetrators. The latter view their belated punishment as a revenge and start considering law as a tool of retaliation that does not deserve respect, Vlk concludes.