President Zuzana Caputova and Prime Minister Eduard Heger (OLaNO) discussed the current situation within the security forces at the Presidential Palace on Monday. The head of state also met with the chairman of the opposition party Smer-SD, Robert Fico. She will be meeting with Parliamentary Chair and leader of the coalition party We Are Family, Boris Kollar, and head of the extra-parliamentary party Voice-SD, Peter Pellegrini, at separate times to discuss the issue. "At these meetings with them, she also plans to speak about how to calm down the situation in Slovakia," added the President's spokesman Martin Strizinec.
Following his meeting with the Slovak head of state on Monday, the Smer-SD leader claimed that he delivered a number of messages to the Presidential Palace during his visit. Fico maintains that public anger is on the rise. He added that the President's inaction in the face of the "destruction of the rule of law" and "egregious bending of criminal law" can be equated to ignorance of reality. The Smer-SD chair also informed the President that the party plans to organise protests in October and November.
Later in the day, Smer-SD chair Robert Fico declared in a video on a social network that his party will deliver two future referendum questions to Zuzana Caputova prior to the launching of its petition campaign, and will wait for her response first. The Constitutional Court found an earlier referendum on snap elections to be unconstitutional, and Fico blames the President for filing a complaint.
The situation within the law-enforcement bodies has also been discussed by Slovakia's Security Council. It decided to set up a working group for restoring confidence in the rule of law, which became operational last week. The group is expected to prepare specific proposals for changes aimed at improving the functioning of the courts, police and prosecution service.
Source: TASR
