Controversial changes to the Criminal Code are going to be discussed in Parliament this week. The coalition has been working on a number of changes in their proposal, under pressure from the European Commission which warned that the new rules should not affect the rule of law in Slovakia.
Debate is scheduled to start tomorrow, Wednesday; the revised bill was given to members of Parliament yesterday evening around 8pm. The Constitutional Law Committee of parliament was scheduled to debate this morning, one day before the full Parliament And it was not published to the public; it had to be leaked to one of the newspapers, Sme.
The newspaper says the proposed changes are ultimately cosmetic.
The most far-reaching proposal, to abolish the Special Prosecutor's Office, still stands. This office prosecutes corruption and organized crime and has scored some considerable success in recent years.
The new changes are mostly about maximum sentences for certain crimes.
For example: the definitions of ‘greater’, ‚significant‘ and ‚large-scale damages‘ are revised; these determine the maximum punishments.
For the crime of subsidy fraud, the maximum prison term was initially proposed to 2 years and nine months; now, the government proposes a ceiling of 3.5 years. For embezzlement, the maximum sentence is reduced from 5 to 4 years.
One proposal seems to be a reaction to the concerns of the EU. The original bill proposed lowering sentences for harming the financial interests of the EU; this element has now been scrapped.
Maximum sentences for corruption, would originally be lowered; but in this latest version, they remain unchanged. However, for the much more common crime of accepting a bribe, the maximum sentence is lowered from 8 to 6 years.
As small as these changes seem to be, they were still unacceptable to Andrej Danko, leader of the junior coalition party SNS and also running for president.
President Caputova has already announced that she is considering vetoing the bills, if they are passed by Parliament. It wouldthen need a second round of voting parliament, where the government has a majority.
