Whistleblowers Protection Office Confirms €70,000 Fine for Interior Ministry

Bratislava, 10 December (TASR) - The Whistleblowers Protection Office (UOO) during appeal proceedings has confirmed the fine of €70,000 that it imposed on the Interior Ministry during first instance proceedings, thereby rejecting an appeal filed by the ministry. Dennik N daily and news website Aktuality.sk were first to break the news. The ministry was fined for issuing a personnel order against a group of police officers without UOO's consent, even though the law obliged it to do so. According to the office, the ministry thus committed an administrative offence. In the contested ruling, the first-instance administrative body stated that the personnel orders were issued at a time when individual whistleblowers had effective protection under the Whistleblowers Protection Act, as granted to them by a prosecutor. The personnel orders concerned the transfer of police officers to district police stations. According to media reports, these were the police officers known as the 'Curilla group'. UOO had previously imposed a fine of €90,000 on the Interior Ministry. After taking up office in 2023, Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok (Voice-SD) suspended police officers centred around investigator Jan Curilla. However, UOO stated that, as the investigators had protected whistleblower status, the minister should have consulted this issue with it. ko/df