In a vote on Tuesday, MPs scrapped the law on the Office for the Protection of Victims of Crime and Whistleblowers, which was intended to replace the Whistleblowers Protection Office (UOO).
The repeal of the law came to Parliament via an amendment to the Criminal Code.
One of the reasons the coalition partners agreed on the scrapping of the law was the motion filed with the Constitutional Court. This caused a time-related complication that threatens the provision of further payments from the recovery plan.
Addressing the repeal of the law intended to transform the Whistleblowers Protection Office (UOO) into a new agency via an amendment to the Criminal Code was the simplest option in terms of timing, head of the coalition Hlas-SD parliamentary caucus Robert Puci told reporters in Parliament on Tuesday.
Puci pointed out that the amendment to the Criminal Code is at its second reading in Parliament, and the law concerning the protection of whistleblowers could thus be scrapped during the current session.
At the same time, however, Puci hopes this will be one of the last such amendments in this legislative term.
"We couldn't have done it any other way. We need to repeal it as soon as possible because we're under pressure from the European Union [EU], which is pushing us to repeal this originally approved bill. This is because they won't only refuse to reimburse us but will also demand that we return all payments made so far from the recovery plan," he stated, adding that he believes that the EU took this step due to pressure from the opposition. "Our colleagues in the opposition went to Brussels so often that they eventually banned us from doing this, or rather told us they would cancel our payments from the recovery plan, so we've withdrawn it for now," he said.
Parliamentary Vice-chairman Tibor Gašpar (Smer-SD) also claims that the coalition decided to scrap the law due to the actions of the European Commission (EC). "We're being pragmatic. If this is going to be a problem for the EC in implementing the recovery plan, let's take it off the table," he stated, adding that no new legislation regarding changes to whistleblowers protection is currently being prepared.
According to coalition MP Petr Kmec (Hlas-SD), the lesson from this situation is that more intensive negotiations with the European Commission (EC) are needed. "A mistake was made there, it must be acknowledged," he told reporters after the vote. He is satisfied with the result, because the money that was, in his words, "withheld" will be released. "I can't tell you who was supposed to negotiate there. The amendments were gradually coming in more and more, so there was no gradual communication with the European Commission," he stated. According to Kmec, the original proposal was not communicated to the EC. "The original proposals were approved and then the amendments led to that unfortunate conflict with the Commission, where the Commission then said that the other amendments were not submitted correctly," he explained.
The head of the opposition PS parliamentary group, Zuzana Mesterová, pointed out that according to the coalition, the abolition of the ÚOO was important because there was a major threat. "And now they have canceled the cancellation. And what if those threats are no longer there, or never were? We need to start talking about the fact that some people here are clearly lying and with those lies they are misleading the public and gambling with the future of Slovakia," she reminded.
The National Council of the Slovak Republic approved the Act on the Transformation of the Office of the Prosecutor General in December 2025. The new legislation was to bring several changes. The new Office for the Protection of Victims of Crime and Whistleblowers was to deal with the agenda of whistleblowers as well as the agenda of compensation for victims of crime, which it was to take over from the Ministry of Justice. The law was also to deal with the review of protection within the framework of criminal and administrative proceedings.
Slovak President Peter Pellegrini vetoed the legislation and returned it to parliament for discussion. However, MPs subsequently approved it again. The Constitutional Court suspended the law before it entered into force.
Source: TASR
