The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rejected the complaints of Smer-SD leader Robert Fico and ex-interior minister Robert Kalinak, the Justice Ministry reported on its website on Monday. The complaints were related to the charges brought against them in April 2022 as part of an investigation overseen by the Special Prosecutor's Office (USP). The ministry explained that the special prosecutor was excluded from the proceedings in the case by the decision of the prosecutor general, while the complainants also raised objections of bias against all other Special Prosecutor's Office (USP) prosecutors. "The prosecutor-general assessed these objections as a request that another part of the prosecutor's office supervise the investigation in the criminal case of the complainants, while the law on the prosecutor's office did not allow such a measure to be taken," said the ministry on its website. Fico and Kalinak complained that due to the general systemic bias of USP, the supervision of the investigation in their criminal case was not impartial, and that their claim of bias was arbitrarily considered as a request to withdraw and enjoin the case, as a result of which they were deprived of an effective remedy. In November 2022, the Prosecutor-General's Office dropped the charges against them according to Paragraph 363 of the Penal Code. "Nevertheless, the complainants insisted on continuing their proceedings before the ECHR, arguing that the reasons for the Prosecutor-General's dismissal of their charges were different from those on which their claims of bias were based, that they had received no redress for the alleged violation of their rights according to the Convention, and that there was no guarantee that the accusation will not be raised again, again under the USP supervision," said the ministry. In its decision, the ECHR pointed out that the question of the justice of a criminal trial can be answered in terms of its jurisprudence only after the review of the proceedings as a whole, i.e. only after its end. "From this point of view, after the decision of the prosecutor-general as of November 2022, there is currently no proceeding against the complainants in which a decision would be made on the charges against them," the ministry conveyed the argument of the ECHR.
Source: TASR
