President Zuzana Caputova on Thursday criticised the last-minute attempts of the governing coalition in Parliament to introduce significant constitutional changes without broader debate.
For example, the main governing party OLANO wants to shorten the term for Constitutional Court judges, while Freedom and Solidarity's (SaS) Alojz Baranik has come up with an idea to put prosecutors' offices under parliamentary or government supervision. The attempts were also addressed by Constitutional Court chair Ivan Fiacan. He asked lawmakers to reconsider the passing of a bill that would amend the court's power to assess the accord between constitutional amendments and the Constitution. Addressing Parliament in his speech on Thursday, Fiacan conceded that the court serves as a safeguard in case of a potential erosion of the rule of law, democracy and freedom of citizens. He underlined that the Slovak Constitution stands above both the Constitutional Court and Parliament. The Prosecutor-General's Office considers it unacceptable to have the constitutional standing of the prosecutor's office changed via an amending proposal by lawmakers and calls on Parliament to turn down a bill sponsored by MP Alojz Baranik (SaS) to that effect. In the Prosecutor-General's view, the bill poses a grave disruption to the constitutional standing of the prosecutor's office and Slovakia's constitutional system. In addition, the change has never been submitted for comments or review by the expert community. The proposal submitted by MP Alojz Baranik (SaS) plans to redefine the status of the prosecutor's office in the Constitution and have either Parliament or Government carry out public supervision over the activities of the prosecutor's office.
Source: TASR
