Prague, Sept 2 (CTK) – Czech activist Ludek Madera has succeeded in making the Presidential Office release the information about the pay of its selected officials, Vratislav Mynar, Jindrich Forejt and Jiri Ovcacek, to him, and he posted the data on Facebook on Friday.
Madera received the information 19 months after he applied for them and shortly before a court was to start dealing with the issue, server iDnes.cz has reported.
Madera, 73, applied for the information about the gross income of Mynar, head of the Presidential Office, Forejt, head of the Protocol section, and Ovcacek, presidential spokesman, for 2013 and 2014 on January 19, 2015, based on the law on free access to information.
Mynar, speaking on behalf of the Presidential Office, truned down his request. Madera reacted by suing the office in April 2015.
The court was to deal with the issue on September 9, 2016, but the Presidential Office sent a letter with the requested information to Madera’s lawyer on August 31.
The letter says Mynar earned about 1.9 million and 2.1 million crowns in 2013 and 2014, respectively, and Forejt earned 1.2 and about one million crowns, respectively.
Ovcacek, who was President Milos Zeman’s spokesman only in December in 2013, earned 68,000 crowns in that year, and in 2014 his gross income reached 875,000 crowns.
Madera said his dispute with the Presidential Office is not over.
“We will sue the Presidential Office and seek financial compensation for the period they failed to give the information to me. If we won the dispute and they have to pay us, we will take steps to make Mynar pay it from his own money,” Madera told iDnes.cz.
Information about the wages of civil servants in leading positions must be provided to applicants without any restrictions, based on the Supreme Administrative Court’s (NSS) verdict from October 2014.
Free access to information is crucial for the control of the public and political spheres, the NSS said.
The Presidential Office also refused to release top officials’ pay under the previous president, Vaclav Klaus.
