The disciplinary motion to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Special Prosecutor Daniel Lipšic, filed by Prosecutor-General Maroš Žilinka, can only be a culmination of tensions between the Prosecutor-General's Office (PG) and the Special Prosecutor's Office (USP), Let's Stop Corruption director Zuzana Petková told TASR press agency on Monday. "I don't know the content of Zilinka's proposal, but from what I read in the media I don't think it's right. I don't want to speculate about the motivation behind Maroš Žilinka's submitting it, but I've been perceiving a certain tension between the Prosecutor General's Office and the Office of Special Prosecutor for several weeks now. So this motion is perhaps just the culmination of this," she stressed, adding that if Lipšic was telling the truth, it's inappropriate to prosecute him simply for violating the principle of restraint.
On August 13 Prosecutor-general Maroš Žilinka filed a motion to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Special Prosecutor Daniel Lipšic. Lipšic allegedly committed a disciplinary offence on July 28 by publicly commenting - speculatively and misleadingly, without knowledge of the file - on the filing of charges by an investigator of a specialised team of the Internal Affairs Inspectorate (UIS), in a criminal case that was legally unfinished and which did not fall within the competence of the Special Prosecutor's Office. And this even after a supervisory prosecutor of the Bratislava Regional Prosecutor's Office, as well as a pre-trial judge of the Bratislava III District Court who took the accused Cs. D. into custody, stated the legitimacy and lawfulness of the charges brought. The special prosecutor, however, considers the statements he made at the end of July "to be true and appropriate to the situation." Lipšic said the statements had been made at a time when false information about alleged "manipulation" in the investigation of the most serious cases had been repeatedly disseminated in the media, including by some public officials. "I therefore considered it my duty to stand up for the investigators and prosecutors in matters overseen by the Special Prosecutor's Office," he said, adding that his statements were factual, specific, and restrained, and never made as a personal attack on anyone.
