Slovak law change roils corruption, rape prosecutions

Slovakia’s parliament approved an amendment to the country’s criminal code on Thursday night that could hobble its fight against corruption and allow ruling coalition MPs and business allies who have been indicted to avoid jail terms for graft.

The amendment, supported by 78 MPs in the 150-seat house, sharply reduces the penalties for various crimes. Accepting or demanding a bribe over €700,000, for example, falls from the current 10-15 years to 5-10 in the revised law.

It also slashes the statute of limitations for major offences, including for rape, where victims will now have only 10 years to secure a verdict instead of the previous 20 years.

“This law endangers the property and the safety of all Slovaks, and is benevolent to criminals, thieves and rapists,” said Michal Šimečka, leader of Progressive Slovakia, the largest opposition party.

Justice Minister Boris Susko, whose ministry proposed the amendment, denied the changes protected perpetrators of crimes. “Quite the opposite,” he told opposition MPs. “I don’t know what you’re afraid of.”

Coalition MP Richard Glück of PM Robert Fico’s Smer party defended the change to the rape statute, saying: “Look at what happens in the world, in America, where some woman remembers after 17 years that someone raped her, and that claim is followed by extortion, a media lynch and a futile prosecution … 10 years to announce a rape is not a short time.”

As the opposition jeered, Šimečka responded that “reducing the statute of limitations for rape, while making primitive statements to the effect that in America women make such things up, is incredibly shameful.”

The amendment also abolishes the Special Prosecutor’s Office as of March 15. The office handles many of the country’s most serious prosecutions, including of political corruption.

As POLITICO previously reported, former national police chief and current MP Tibor Gašpar of the ruling Smer party remains indicted as the alleged head of a criminal group that operated within the police. During debate on the criminal code amendment, Gašpar submitted a change that would reduce the 10-15 years he faces for corruption to only 4-10 years, thereby allowing him to apply for a conditional sentence.

Regarding the changes to the statutes of limitations, Gašpar said “we talked about it, but we didn’t see any reason to [alter what we proposed].”

President Zuzana Čaputová may now return the law to parliament for a definitive vote, or appeal it to the Constitutional Court. She said she is considering all options, and criticized coalition MPs for making such important and substantial changes to the country’s legal fabric in accelerated legislative proceedings.

“It was [also] prepared and voted on by MPs, the outcome of whose ongoing court cases would be improved by the amendment,” she said.

“I regard that as inadmissible.”