Lawyers: controversial amnesties can be cancelled

The cancellation of the controversial amnesties issued by former Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar would be legitimate, some of Slovakia's leading lawyers agreed, TASR reports on Monday. As they explained, the former prime minister took neither the interests of the Slovak citizens nor the advocacy of the Slovak Constitution into account. In 1998 Mečiar, then as acting president, stopped the investigation of two cases: the kidnapping of the son of former president Michal Kováč, and a thwarted referendum. Slovakia's parliament should decide on their cancellation during its upcoming session. The group of lawyers which issued this statement includes current and former judges from the Supreme and Constitutional Court; former chair of Constitutional Court Ján Mazák, judge of the EU Court of Justice Daniel Šváby, director of the State and law institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences Jozef Vozár or former agent on behalf of the Slovak Republic in the European Court of Human Rights proceedings Peter Vršanský.