Illustration photo – Minister of Justice Pavel Blažek at a press conference in Prague after the government meeting, November 23, 2022.
Prague – The way in which Minister of Justice Pavel Blažek (ODS) is interested in information in the case of buying city apartments in Brno, he is unhappy, the Union of State Attorneys said on Twitter today. She thus joined the previous similar statement of the chief prosecutor Igor Stříž, which was quoted by Seznam Zprávy and Deník N. According to Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS), Blažek acted in accordance with the minister's obligations when he requested information about the case.
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Regarding the housing case, in which, according to the Seznam Zprávy server, Blažek's acquaintances appear, the minister sent four requests for information to the plaintiffs in the last month. N Stříž told Deník that the minister's previous requests were addressed both to him and to the chief prosecutor in Olomouc. The requests do not seem happy to Striž. Supervising public prosecutor Petra Lastovecká told Deník N that Blažka's questioning is over the top and goes beyond everything she has experienced in her position so far.
The union said today that it agrees with Striž's assessment. “The manner in which the Minister of Justice is interested in information in the so-called Brno housing case is unfortunate. The minister's current activities and statements may be perceived by the supervising prosecutor as inadmissible coercion,” the statement reads. Especially because, according to publicly available information, the criminal proceedings also concern the minister's former colleagues, added the union.
“A small sigh. So many fighters for the public prosecutor, who apart from asking questions about her work, nothing happens… And almost no one who would deal with the fates of people destroyed by her decisions. And it's not about ODS members, as I keep reading somewhere,” he wrote Blažek on Twitter today.
According to Stříž, Blažek's first request concerned a former accused whose criminal prosecution was dropped. According to him, the woman turned to the minister with her demands, or rather her impressions. In the second case, it was an initiative of a lawyer who pointed to alleged illegalities and delays in the proceedings. In the third and fourth cases, the minister wanted information about the interpellations of deputies.
Blažek said on Twitter on Wednesday that he is registering five interpellations from the coalition and opposition benches regarding the case. “I reported the incident to the government today (Wednesday),” added the minister. According to Fiala, Blažek himself asked at the government meeting to be able to explain his procedure. “He did that in an absolutely convincing way,” the prime minister said. According to him, the ministry must deal with initiatives and complaints regarding the work of the judiciary and prosecutors. In the second case, the questions must be raised directly by the minister, he added.
On Tuesday, Transparency International CR appealed to the Prime Minister with a call for the dismissal of Minister Blažek. Jakub Michálek, the chairman of the parliament of the coalition Pirates, also said on Twitter on Tuesday that the Pirates will call on Blažek to explain his possible conflict of interests and to prove to the public that he is not acting selectively.
Last fall, the police in Brno intervened because of apartments and city property several times. At the beginning of October, in connection with the privatization of apartments in the town hall of the Brno-střed district, she accused eight people, led by ODS politician Otakar Bradáč. In mid-October, it detained a group of people in connection with an attempt to take over the sand pit in Chernivtsi.
