Worse still, it was not just the economy, the political culture, the inflation, the living standard and the alarming social situation that deteriorated beyond recognition. Hand in hand with overall instability and chaos also the rule of law started receiving one serious blow after another when police measures were taken and attempts were being made on a daily basis to criminalize the opposition and detain and charge its representatives with all sorts of made up crimes. This was usually done by the controversial National Crime Agency (NAKA) and its preferred method of forcing their way into the front yards and homes of alleged suspects of crimes to detain them for unspecified periods of time, often without the detained persons even knowing what they were being charged with. As a rule, local media were always tipped off to be on the site in the small hours, too, to take pictures and report the police raids and the detaining in vivid detail. This has led to multiple cases of violations of human rights, confirmed by twenty-six rulings by the nation’s Constitutional court and four rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (in the period of 2020-2021 alone). Several detained people died while in custody under circumstances which remain to be thoroughly investigated. All this, and much more, did not go unnoticed by the nation’s Slovak Information Service (SIS) which issued a highly concerning classified report of foul police play in numerous instances and of murky police practices in striving to prosecute and sentence people purported to be in any way associated with the opposition. One would have to be deaf, blind and unconscious not to see that the aim had been to maim the opposition and, preferably, destroy and get rid of it altogether in the end, thus transforming the nation’s political landscape into a pitiful semi-desert. Luckily, the September elections put a stop to that effort at the eleventh hour.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor, led by a former politician convicted of killing a man on a pedestrian crossing in downtown Bratislava while driving, has been widely criticised for being instrumental in these practices. It would far exceed the scope of this report and appeal to go into many dismal details of both NAKA and Office of the Special Prosecutor actions. Suffice it to say that the general public got increasingly concerned. Its discontent eventually grew to reach the boiling point and the Slovak people acted accordingly in the September 30 elections. Most people stand firm in their support for the new government’s intention to scrap the controversial Special Prosecutor’s Office. Now even more than at the time of the election.
Under the nation’s Constitution Slovak democracy is based on rule of law and justice, rather than on anyone’s wishful attempts at abusing the principles of rule of law in pursuit of partisan goals. The new government, though it may not be perfect since no government in the world can claim to be perfect, has been
elected by the voters who have entrusted it with putting Slovakia back on track also in respect to democracy, freedom, human rights and rule of law. We would therefore urge you to reconsider with due care, thorough knowledge of facts and proper respect any one-sided criticism of the actions and intentions of the new Slovak government. No amount of feverish political proselytising by a bunch of frustrated discontents can mask, hide or put a plausible makeup on the gross violations of rule of law and principles of democracy under the previous governments. 1/2
