"The first legislative task of the new Interior Minister Tomáš Drucker will be a change to how the police corps president is chosen," said Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini for public broadcaster RTVS. However, he did not say when it should happen. "We are leaving it up to him, when and what solution he comes up with." "If I were the interior minister, I would give myself a few weeks to prepare a law on the Police Corps that would depoliticise it completely," said the chair of the opposition We are family party Boris Kollár for RTVS. As Speaker of Parliament Andrej Danko reacted, "it is very unfortunate to reduce the issues in the police only to the police corps president and his replacement in the post". According to Danko, legislation regarding changes to the selection, appointment, election and dismissal of the police corps president needs to be discussed. "Something that has been neglected for 25 years cannot be resolved quickly now," said Danko. Independent opposition MP Miroslav Beblavý filed a proposal on changing the law on the Police Corps using a fast track procedure with its main points being to choose the new president of police corps in an open way and for the inspection of the police corps to be detached from the Interior Ministry.
The departure of the current head of the police corps, Tibor Gašpar, was one of the main requests heard in the Slovak streets during the protests 'for a decent Slovakia' which preceded the reconstruction of government. Their organizers did not like the fact that under his reign several big corruption scandals have not been resolved. Gašpar's work and suspicions concerning it was also one of the topics of journalist Ján Kuciak, whose murder triggered the protests. Eyes are now on the new Interior Minister Tomáš Drucker, who should decide whether Gašpar leaves or not. "President Kiska addressed me with such a request," said Drucker, adding that on the one hand does not want to undermine the social order to oust Gaspar. On the other hand, there are voices saying that it should not happen," he said, adding that he wants to take enough time to make his mind up in this regard.
"If Mr. Drucker does not start taking actions and does not fire Mr. Gašpar, we will be standing again in the streets and using other forms of civic pressure," said the organizers of the 'for a decent Slovakia' protests Juraj Šeliga and Martina Strmeňová.
