Civic Conservative Party (OKS) Chairman Ondrej Dostál, who serves in Parliament as a Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) MP, sent a letter to Prosecutor-General Jaromír Čižnár on Monday in which he asked him to examine the police's decision not to prosecute former prime minister Vladimir Mečiar for misusing the powers of a public official in relation to the controversial amnesties from 1998. They concerned the crimes of the 1995 kidnapping of then-president Michal Kovač's son, Michal Jr., and the thwarting of a referendum in 1997, as well as related crimes. With the police describing the deeds as falling under the statute of limitations, it was announced last week that the former premier will elude prosecution even though the Constitutional Court has declared that he indeed acted beyond the scope of his powers by issuing the amnesties. "The issue has been dropped as expired," said Bratislava Regional Police Directorate spokesperson Lucia Miháliková last week.
Dostál disagrees with this decision, however. "The opinion that the aforementioned issue, even if it were a crime, has expired, is erroneous, I believe," said Dostál, adding that the constitutional law adopted in the spring that allowed the scrapping of Mečiar's amnesties specifically stipulates that the time during which the deeds were subject to the amnesties can't be factored into the time that normally puts similar issues under the statute of limitations. Dostál believes that what he views as Mečiar's misuse of a public official's powers was a crime related to the aforementioned two key issues, meaning that the former prime minister should be prosecuted.
