Punishment of forfeiture of property: Criminals fear it more than imprisonment (poll) – Denník N

With the penalty of forfeiture of property, something similar can happen to what happened to the regulation of collusive detention: until influential and wealthy persons were detained, often detained directly in high public office, no one addressed the conditions of detention or its duration. However, since the investigation affected exposed persons, there has been increasing pressure to change detention conditions. The length of the collusive detention has already been regulated by law – at the request of the coalition party We Are the Family.

The penalty of confiscation of property has been in the Criminal Code for ten years. The first person to say he should drop out was former Minister of the Interior and now lawyer Robert Kaliňák. He himself is representing Judge David Lindtner accused of corruption.

Already in February, Kaliňák, together with thirty members of the Smer party, turned to the Constitutional Court and asked him to declare that the imposition of this sentence was unconstitutional. The direction says that the accused should only lose property that he has demonstrably acquired illegally, and they do not like the fact that in serious cases (widespread corruption, criminal group, drug gangs) the court is obliged to impose this punishment, so it is mandatory. The punishment in the Direction was called cruel, disproportionate and unjust.

The Constitutional Court accepted the case for further proceedings, the rapporteur being Judge Jana Laššáková – a former member of Smer. She also objected in the matter, but the plenary of the Constitutional Court stated that she was not biased. “Necessary procedural acts are currently in progress in the proceedings and it is currently not possible to determine the date of the substantive decision in the case,” said court spokeswoman Martina Ferencová.

Now the chairman of Sme rodina Boris Kollár has joined Kaliňák and is also calling for the abolition of the forfeiture of property. “In cases of corruption, we will oppose the confiscation of the convict’s entire property. Let him receive a punishment and a fine, “Kollár said in the daily Pravda.

Although several coalition deputies are against it, OĽaNO chairman Igor Matovič declared in Denník N that this was a legitimate opinion that needs to be considered.

“Let’s imagine, purely hypothetically, a man who has earned a million euros with his work and then took a bribe of 20 thousand euros. With such a person, is it legitimate to say that he has now failed at 20,000 euros, and is it right for him to lose the million that he previously earned honestly? ‘ Matovic asked. However, this penalty is obligatory only if it is a large-scale bribe, which is more than 133 thousand euros.

Matovic also said that he would go about it with the corrupt so that “he would automatically forfeit what he took as a bribe, let’s give him five times more fine, so we take away from him instead of 20 thousand 100 thousand, and all the other property, when proves that you earned it honestly, let’s leave it to him. “

The Constitutional Law Committee must also comment on the submission of the Directive to the Constitutional Court. MEPs discussed it on Wednesday, but postponed the vote. The chairman of the committee, Milan Vetrák from OĽaNO, said at the meeting that the basis of OĽaNO’s existence is an anti-corruption agenda and he would not want to change anything in the current sentence. Vetrák commissioned the Parliamentary Institute to prepare an analysis, which compares the regulations in other EU countries and which shows that Slovakia is not a rarity. “We have a milder regulation than in Germany,” said Vetrák. According to him, it is important that the corrupt perpetrator remembers the punishment.

Alojz Baránik, vice-chairman of the SaS, had a similar opinion. According to him, if the perpetrator loses only the property he acquired as a bribe, then according to him it is not even a punishment.

The daily N addressed judges, prosecutors and lawyers with questions about how they perceive this punishment, whether they consider it an effective tool in the fight against corruption or organized crime, and whether they see it as elements of injustice or unconstitutionality.

Denník N also addressed Prosecutor General Maroš Žilinka,