Brno, Jan 24 (CTK) – Supreme Court (NS) chairman Pavel Samal rejected on Wednesday the statement by PM Andrej Babis (ANO) about the possibility to order criminal prosecution in the Czech Republic and said similar words may threaten trust in impartial justice and even cause collapse of the rule of law.
“Regardless of the tense and extremely personal circumstances under which these words were said, the prime minister should not utter them without evidence, respectively without almost immediately completing them with particular examples and background documentation that could be investigated as is the case in any law-abiding state,” Samal said.
The NS has no findings about the possibility to order criminal prosecution in the Czech Republic, Samal said.
“We are fully convinced that Prime Minister Babis has no such pieces of information either,” Samal added.
Constitutional officials should not make similar statements without evidence to prove them, Samal added.
“We are living in a country where you can order prosecution and probably get someone to prison,” Babis said at the Chamber of Deputies session dealing with his release for criminal prosecution on suspicion of an EU subsidy fraud last Friday.
Some politicians criticised Babis’s statement at the lower house plenary session and they called on Justice Minister Robert Pelikan (ANO) to either confirm or refute this.
On Tuesday, Pelikan called the debate on the possibility to order prosecution “a storm in a teacup.” He said he would not exaggerate it by his comments.
Supreme State Attorney Pavel Zeman called on politicians on Friday to turn to him or other state attorneys if they had well-founded information about influencing the steps or decision-making by law enforcement bodies.
Unsubstantiated political statements undermine trustworthiness of the judiciary that cannot defend itself against them efficiently, he said.
