Slovakia makes slow progress in tackling corruption

The person as soon as tasked with tackling corruption in Slovakia is going through as much as eight years in jail after he was discovered responsible of corrupt actions himself.

Final week, Slovakia’s Supreme Court docket upheld a conviction towards Dušan Kováčik, the previous head of the elite prosecutor’s workplace, for accepting bribes to launch the boss of a prison group from jail and leaking categorised data from the prosecutor’s workplace.

The court docket did cut back Kováčik’s his sentence from 14 years to eight, and acquitted him of the extra cost of supporting a prison group, overturning rulings made by a decrease court docket final yr.

However, analysts have known as it a “groundbreaking” resolution. “By no means earlier than was such a high-ranking public official, from an establishment accountable itself for investigating and prosecuting prison proceedings, despatched to jail,” mentioned Katarína Klingová, a senior analysis fellow at Bratislava-based assume tank the GLOBSEC Coverage Institute.

The sentencing she added, was an essential step in “cleansing out the home”: the Slovakian authorities’s ongoing marketing campaign to eradicate corruption, state seize, and inequality earlier than the regulation.

Since 2020 the Slovakian authorities have introduced dozens of high-ranking officers to justice, together with the previous legal professional basic, and ex-chiefs of police and tax administration.

Slovakia struggled with corruption after the autumn of communism in 1989 and its breakaway from Czechslovakia 4 years later. By 2018, it was ranked one of the corrupt international locations within the EU. 

Andrej Kiska, the nation’s president on the time, known as Slovakia a “mafia state”.

The issue exploded into public consciousness the identical yr, after a younger investigative journalist, Jan Kuciak, and his finance had been murdered exterior their dwelling. Kuciak had been investigating hyperlinks between organised crime and political elites.

For a lot of, it was harking back to the homicide in 1996 of Róbert Remiáš, a police officer, which many imagine was dedicated by the Slovak mafia on the orders of the then-prime minister, Vladimír Mečiar. Throughout Mečiar’s tenure, Slovakia was known as the “black gap on the map of Europe” by the then-US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright.

Nationwide protests following Kuciak’s homicide introduced down the federal government of Robert Fico, the top of the dominant Route-Social Democracy (Směr-SD) social gathering.

After subsequent investigations, prosecutors alleged that the tycoon Marian Kočner had allegedly tasked Alena Zsuzsová, an affiliate, with arranging Kuciak’s homicide. A number of people had been prosecuted for involvement, with most of them confessing.

In 2020, Kočner was sentenced to 19 years in jail for forging promissory notes however was acquitted in a separate trial for involvement within the homicide of Kuciak.

Final June, nevertheless, the Supreme Court docket overturned that ruling over the proof offered through the trial and ordered a retrial by the Specialised Felony Court docket, which started earlier this yr.

Gradual progress on anti-corruption challenge

With public anger rising about systematic corruption, Slovak voters delivered a powerful message to the nation’s conventional political elite on the 2020 basic elections that this must change. 

OĽaNO, a small populist social gathering, received the poll with 1 / 4 of the favored vote. Igor Matovič, its chief, campaigned on the one promise to get robust on corruption. He shaped a coalition authorities with three events that spun the political spectrum.

Michal Piško, director of Transparency Worldwide Slovakia, says the federal government’s response to corruption since 2020 ought to be damaged down into two classes.

The primary is establishing new anti-corruption laws and instruments. The second is guaranteeing the independence of justice and regulation enforcement authorities, preventing towards what is named “state seize”.

On the previous, the federal government has “lagged behind its guarantees in lots of points,” Piško mentioned, regardless that final yr the federal government created a brand new Workplace for the Safety of Whistleblowers and a Supreme Administrative Court docket, in addition to a number of different our bodies.

In its 2021 report, the Council of Europe’s Group of States Towards Corruption additionally noticed gradual progress within the nation’s implementing anti-corruption measures. Eight out of 16 advisable measures weren’t absolutely in place 5 years after the publication of the earlier report.

On tackling state seize, nevertheless, there was better success, and “the sentencing and imprisonment of Dušan Kováčik is an integral a part of that,” Piško mentioned.

“There has not been any such high-ranking official imprisoned for corruption in Slovakia to this point.”

Partly because of this, Slovakia moved up three factors in Transparency Worldwide’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2021, placing it above Armenia and Greece, though it’s nonetheless among the many backside performers inside the EU.

‘Good monitor however nonetheless a protracted strategy to go’

A lot activates politics, nevertheless. Matovic, the prime minister elected in 2020, resigned final yr due to his authorities’s dealing with of the COVID-19 pandemic. At one level Slovakia had the world’s highest fee of infections per capita. He’s presently the finance minister.

The governing coalition, a hodgepodge of events from throughout the spectrum, has additionally struggled to seek out settlement. Boris Kollár, chief of the Sme Rodina (We Are Household) social gathering and speaker of parliament, has regularly clashed with OĽaNO, the most important coalition associate.

“Inconclusive coping with the pandemic and common disagreements within the coalition have undermined the federal government’s capability for motion in anti-corruption,” mentioned Piško of Transparency Worldwide Slovakia.

One other drawback is that the alleged masterminds of corruption networks stay in politics.

A lot reportedly leads again to Fico, the previous three-term prime minister. Kováčik, the jailed former prosecutor, is the primary individual regarded as near Fico who has been imprisoned, famous Klingová, a senior analysis fellow on the GLOBSEC Coverage Institute.

Members of the present coalition authorities say Kováčik’s imprisonment is punishment for the alleged breakdown of rule of regulation throughout Směr-SD’s yr in workplace.

“The betrayal of those beliefs of democratic Slovakia has caught up with him in the present day,” Alojz Baránik, an MP for the Freedom and Solidarity social gathering (SaS), a member of the coalition authorities, advised native media.

In April, Fico and his former inside minister, Robert Kaliňák, had been charged with organised crime offences, together with abuse of energy and the institution and assist of a prison group. They’re additionally accused of utilizing categorised tax information to wage smear campaigns towards political rivals.

Fico denies wrongdoing and has claimed it is a political conspiracy towards him and his social gathering.

As a result of Fico continues to be an MP, and chief of Směr-SD, he has immunity. The Slovakian parliament voted in Might to not revoke this immunity after a number of abstentions from MPs from the coalition authorities.

“Justice has misplaced a battle,” Igor Matovič, the previous prime minister, commented after the vote. The case towards Fico will proceed however with out the potential of a custodial verdict.

Kalinak, the previous inside minister, is now not an MP and was arrested in April. If discovered responsible, he faces a doable 12 years in jail. 

Earlier this yr, Fico appealed to European politicians to assist defend his case.

Věra Jourová, the EU justice commissioner and a Czech, reiterated that EU our bodies received’t intervene in home prison circumstances.

And Fico was roundly criticised as he referred to Slovakia’s present president Zuzana Čaputová as “an American missus.” There are additionally requires the European Parliament’s Socialists & Democrats Group to kick out Směr-SD.

“All these investigations and scandals have proven that Slovakia has a extreme drawback with state seize, with corruption on the highest ranges of public administration, together with police and judiciary,” mentioned Klingová.

“Slovakia appears to be on an excellent monitor, however there may be nonetheless a protracted strategy to go.”