Zilinka: Changes to Organisation of Prosecution Service Require Great Caution

Bratislava, 9 September (TASR) - Prime Minister Robert Fico's (Smer-SD) claims about a possible reform of the prosecution service are an attempt to create pressure, and any organisational changes would require great caution, Prosecutor-General Maros Zilinka told journalists in Parliament on Wednesday, adding that, in his opinion, making such changes just to address personnel issues would be the wrong approach. At a press conference on Tuesday (8 September), Fico called on Zilinka to resign, stating that if he remains in office, he'll create the conditions for preparing and adopting a comprehensive reform of the prosecution service. "I don't know what the prime minister's idea of reorganising the prosecution service is [...] Changes in the organisation of the the prosecution service should be approached with great caution and shouldn't be dynamic in a sense that its organisation will change with every government," said Zilinka. "This makes the work of prosecutors significantly more difficult, because one day they're doing one thing and the next day another. I've described it by saying that a prosecutor mustn't be like a monkey on a rubber band. There must be some stability. And if the sole reason for changing the organisation of the prosecution service is to resolve a personnel issue, that's a very bad approach. It's a very weird idea of how the rule of law should function," added Zilinka. Zilinka reiterated that he sees no reason to resign as prosecutor-general. "I'm not aware of having betrayed the oath that I took as a prosecutor, and certainly not the oath I took as prosecutor-general before the president of the Slovak Republic [Zuzana Caputova, at that time - ed. note]. I really see no reason why I should back down just because representatives of the executive or legislative branches have a different idea about the administration of justice," he said. jrg/df