Prague City Hall cancels fine imposed on Czech PM

The Prague City Hall has cancelled the fine it imposed on Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) for nomination of Andrej Babis (ANO) for Czech finance minister without a lustration certificate, the Czech newswire Ceskeynoviny reported June 25.

The Prime Minister who filed an appeal from the verdict of the first instance, welcomed the Prague City Hall’s decision.

“I am convinced that this decision is the only possible step that fully complies with the law,” said Sobotka, as cited by the newswire. “Unlike the previous decision by the Prague 1 authority, it is not based on the effort to assess political decisions in administrative delict proceedings, but it strictly follows legal standards.”

In an explanation of the verdict, the Prague City Hall stated that  under the lustration law the body that appoints a government minister, in this case the president, requires a lustration certificate. According to the verdict explaination, an administrative delict could not have been committed.

Prague 1 launched proceedings against Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka following two mid-march 2014 complains from a Prague resident.

The first complaint questioned the appointment of Andrej Babis, a billionaire and successful businessman, as finance minister by Czech President Milos Zeman, despite the fact that Babis failed to provide the lustration certificate that candidates for ministers are obliged to produce. The second complaint challenged the nomination of Babis by Sobotka in his capacity as prime minister designate.

The lustration certificate is a document that proves whether a candidate for ministerial role collaborated with the pre-1989 communist secret police (StB) or was the high-rank member of the Communist Party (KSC) before 1989.

Meanwhile, local media reported that Andris Babic, a Slovak-born media and food tycoon, is registered as an informer and an agent of the StB in its files that are preserved in Slovakia. Babic, however, claims that the documents had been falsified and in his response to the accusations sued the Slovak Nation’s Memoty Institute (UPN) that administrates the security forces’ file. A Bratislava-based court should conclude the proceedings on this matter shortly.