Justice Minister Pavel Blažek (ODS) is acting in accordance with the law and his duties as a minister. Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) said this today in response to Blažek’s requests for information on the case of the purchase of city flats in Brno. Supreme State Prosecutor Igor Stříž did not find the requests happy, he told Seznam Zprávy and Deník N. He met with the Justice Minister today at a working meeting, during which he informed the Minister about the way similar requests are handled, announced Petr Malý, spokesman for the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office (NSZ).
According to Seznam Zprávy, the minister sent four requests for information to prosecutors over the past month regarding the housing case involving Blažek’s acquaintances. Stříž told the daily N that the minister’s requests to date have been addressed both to him and to the chief prosecutor in Olomouc.
Stříž said Blažek’s first request concerned a former defendant whose prosecution had been dropped. The woman in question, he said, had approached the minister with her requests, or rather impressions. In the second case, it was a complaint by a lawyer who pointed to alleged illegalities and delays in the proceedings. In the third and fourth cases, the Minister wanted information on the MPs’ interpellations.
Blažek tweeted today that he had registered five interpellations on the case from both the coalition and opposition benches. “I have reported to the government today on the developments,” the minister added.
According to Fiala, Blažek himself asked today for a point of order so that he could explain his actions. “He did that in an absolutely convincing way,” the prime minister said. He said the ministry must address suggestions and complaints about the work of the judiciary and prosecutors. In the latter case, the minister must raise the queries directly, he added.
Blažek follows the same procedure in other cases where doubts arise, and must do so especially in cases where it turns out that the prosecution was illegal or where leaks from files are found.
On Tuesday, Transparency International CR appealed to the Prime Minister to dismiss Minister Blažek. Jakub Michálek, chairman of the coalition Pirates, also tweeted on Tuesday that the Pirates will call on Blažek to explain his possible conflict of interest and to prove to the public that he is not acting selectively.
“There is no influence on cases, there cannot be. The questions asked by Minister Blažek in the so-called Brno case did not concern ODS members, and any question raised by the Justice Minister cannot be interpreted as meaning interference in the proceedings,” Fiala said today. He added that if it meant such interference, the competent authority could not answer him.
Chief State Prosecutor Stříž had a working meeting with Blažek this afternoon. “Of course, the two of them also talked about requesting information and the minister’s communication with the prosecutor’s office,” said a spokesman for the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office, Small. He said Stříž informed Blažek about the mechanism by which such requests are handled and the scope of information on the status of criminal proceedings that the prosecutor’s office can provide to the minister.
Police intervened in Brno last autumn on several occasions over flats and municipal property. At the beginning of October, it charged eight people, led by ODS politician Otakar Bradáč, in connection with the privatisation of flats at the Brno-střed town hall. In mid-October, it detained a group of people in connection with an attempt to take control of a sand plant in Černovice.
Source: Seznam Zprávy and CTK
