Prosecutors Council: USP Has Justified Existence in Almost 20 Years of Activity

Bratislava, December 6 (TASR) - The Special Prosecutor's Office (USP) has justified its existence over almost 20 years, especially in prosecuting extremely serious criminal activities, Council of Prosecutors chairman Stanislav Jakubcik told TASR on Wednesday, adding that scrapping USP would also have serious consequences for the activities of regional prosecutor's offices. "I haven't noticed any serious professional discussion yet that would justify the abolition of the office at the professional level. The presented reasons for scrapping the office are of a political nature, and the final decision as to whether to maintain the office or not will be political," he pointed out. According to him, there's no justification for casting doubt on the professional competence of prosecutors at regional prosecutor's offices, but abolishing USP would have serious consequences for their activities. "At the moment, the conditions haven't been created for taking over an enormous number of extremely serious criminal cases from a capacity point of view, as they are already dealing with serious crimes that don't fall within the USP's scope of activity," he told TASR, stressing that he hasn't even noticed a serious discussion on the impact of scrapping the office on the activities of regional prosecutor's offices. "Scrapping USP without reorganising the Specialised Criminal Court [based in Pezinok (Bratislava region)] or forming regional branches of the court would result in prosecutors of regional prosecutor's offices having to travel hundreds of kilometres to participate in court proceedings (for example, the distance from Kosice to Pezinok is 487 kilometres)," he pointed out, adding that this would include actions that form part of preliminary proceedings. am/df