BRATISLAVA, June 6, (WEBNOVINY) — Ruling coalition leaders have come together at the week’s start at the new headquarters of the liberal SaS party to agree on nominations to fill vacancies at top posts in several state institutions and nominate a joint candidate for the new prosecutor general who is to be picked in the public vote in parliament, possibly before the summer recess. A tender to purchase a new wiretapping system and an amendment to the law on the National Memory Institute will be high on the agenda as well.
Coalition representatives are to take a definitive stance on the SaS’s nomination of the Supreme Court judge Juraj Kliment for head of the National Security Office (NBU). Kliment is already the third nominee of the party of Richard Sulik. to which the right belongs to nominate a candidate to the post. The first one, Jan Stano worked with the intelligence service the SIS in the era of ex-spy boss Ivan Lexa, which the KDH was not willing to accept while the latter one, Peter Paluda was not an acceptable candidate for the SDKU. The OKS whose four deputies are members of the MOST-HID deputy club has reservations regarding Kliment because he was a member of the panel of judges that confirmed the sentences for six men from Nitra for rape and murder of the student of medicine Ludmila Cervanova thirty years ago. They appealed against their previous sentences handed down in what they consider a manipulated trial. However MOST-HID leader Bela Bugar and SDKU-DS Deputy Chairman Milan Hort both believe that the coalition will strike an accord regarding the next NBU head.
The coalition will also discuss their joint nominee for the post of prosecutor general. Nominations for the new election can be delivered by June 10. It is widely believed that the ruling coalition’s candidate for the post will again be Jozef Centes, however KDH Deputy Chairman Pavel Abrhan has reservations regarding his candidacy.
The Public Procurement Office (UVO) top job, which has been vacant for almost two months, now will be also on the agenda on Monday. The Cabinet has not yet proposed a candidate for the post to replace the former chairman Roman Sipos. Sipos, nominee of the strongest opposition party SMER-SD, resigned from the post on April 11 after Prime Minister Iveta Radicova and the coalition criticized the office for protracted public procurement because of numerous cancellations of public tenders. SMER-SD Chairman Robert Fico suggested a candidate for office less than a month ago at the request of Prime Minister Iveta Radicova without disclosing the name to the public but Radicova had reservations against the proposed candidate. In compliance with new regulation, parliament will decide on the UVO based on the proposal of the Cabinet.
The modernization of the national wiretapping system shared by the police and secret services will be also one of the points of the Monday’s agenda of the Coalition Council. Interior Minister Daniel Lipsic and Prime Minister Iveta Radicova have agreed recently on a replacement of the current wiretapping system. Radicova and her minister have come to a conclusion that the old wiretapping system currently used by respective departments and secret services will no longer undergo modernization but a new one will be built, which should eliminate illegal eavesdropping in Slovakia. The modernization contract recently signed by Lipsic’s ministry will be revoked. New wiretapping systems will be acquired in a selection procedure.
SITA