Supreme Court Rejects Appeal in Kollar Case

Bratislava, 27 March (TASR) - The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Justice Minister Boris Susko (Smer-SD) in the case of lawyer Zoroslav Kollar, who was legally convicted in 2022 under a plea bargain of bribery and indirect corruption and sentenced to a fine of €70,000, Kollar himself told TASR, adding that he filed a constitutional complaint against the decision. It was SME daily that broke the news first. "The Supreme Court's decision didn't definitively resolve anything in my case. It didn't address the question of whether my rights were violated or not. It rejected the justice minister's appeal solely on procedural grounds, as the court erroneously believed that the justice minister couldn't file such an appeal," emphasised Kollar. He claims that the Supreme Court failed to properly address the justice minister's arguments and based its decision solely on a reference to the Constitutional Court's ruling. "The Supreme Court misinterpreted the conclusions of the aforementioned verdict of the Constitutional Court and committed several errors, the consequences of which constitute a violation of my constitutional rights," Kollar told TASR, stating that he'll continue to seek "redress for the injustice". According to SME daily, the Supreme Court pointed out in the reasoning for its decision an attempt to apply the Criminal Code retroactively. The Supreme Court's panel had already unanimously rejected the appeal in January. The Justice Ministry defended filing the appeal on behalf of the convicted person by arguing that the factual description of one of the two crimes listed in the Specialised Criminal Court's judgment didn't contain the elements of the relevant crime as defined in the Criminal Code, of which Kollar was found guilty. According to the ministry, the plea bargain approved by the Specialised Criminal Court thus appears unjust in light of the aforementioned deficiency, which constituted grounds for the justice minister to file an appeal, regardless of the fact that the convicted person confessed to the offence. In May 2022, Kollar was sentenced to a total fine of €70,000 for corruption. In the event of non-payment, he faces a substitute sentence of 14 months in prison. The court considered the plea bargain to be appropriate and fair. Kollar stated at the time that he wasn't a cooperating defendant, hadn't betrayed anyone and wasn't incriminating anyone. He said that he had merely described the events that occurred to law-enforcement bodies. Kollar was convicted of the misdemeanour of bribery because, in August 2020, he allegedly provided a bribe of €40,000 to the then-leadership of the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS) via Ludovit M. [name abbreviated due to legal reasons] in exchange for not being monitored. The second act, related to providing cover for the illegal production of cigarettes, involved the misdemeanour of indirect corruption. am/df