‘Our intention is not to delay the investigation’

The Commission for the Prevention of Corruption (KPK) is against the Prime Minister Robert Golob launched an investigation into the claims of the former interior minister Tatjana Bobnar, that before her resignation in December last year, she was subject to unjustified political pressure. The KPK decided on this at the beginning of November, and on Monday the public was informed about who the person in question is.

So what is the status of Prime Minister Golob now that he is being investigated by the KPK? “He is the person under consideration who has the right to tell the commission his view of the matter or our accusations against him. We will question Robert Golob as soon as possible, because our intention is not to delay the investigation, but when possible and of course when all those available for hearings will also be finished,” is on the show 24 HOURS IN THE EVENING explained David Lapornikdeputy chairman of the Communist Party of the Czech Republic.

Champion of the opposition SDS Janez Janša The KPK complains that it took a whole year to decide on the initiation of the investigation. They received the application already in December 2022. Lapornik emphasized again that the preliminary examination of the application took so long. “As we said, we cooperated with other state authorities. We are still the first of these state authorities to complete this initial, preliminary part and go into the investigation phase. The reason it took so long is also because the matter is complex . It was necessary to examine the matter carefully, to conduct interviews already in the preliminary examination of the application, so that we would not go into the investigation without this well-founded suspicion.” explained the deputy president of the KPK.

Lapornik also rejected the accusations of Janša, who says that the anti-corruption commission is from the very beginning “an instrument of those on the left who install and remove governments” and yes “the investigation means the removal of Golob”. “I will deny this because the commission has always worked, at least during my involvement in it, professionally, expertly and without any external pressure. All the governments that have resigned due to the findings of the commission have resigned due to the final findings of the commission, not the initiation of the investigation itself . But it is true what we claim already in the annual report, and also last week at the Committee on Justice: there should be clearly defined sanctions for a violation of integrity.” he emphasized.

In December last year, the chairman of the commission withdrew from the decision-making process in the specific case Robert Šumi. Among other things, he based his decision on the fact that the police had a freeze on his employment contract and that he had a business connection with Bobnarjeva, with whom they had cooperated for several years, the KPK announced after the aforementioned meeting.

“Mr. Šumi excluded himself also in order to protect the integrity of the institution, because he himself had contacts with the persons involved in the application or in the accusations. And in this way, with his exclusion, he ensured that there could be no doubt about an unprofessional decision, or any lack of professionalism in that decision,” explained Lapornik and added that Šumi will not learn anything substantive about this matter until the procedure is completed.