Kažimír still indicted, others acquitted. Supreme Court clears up ambiguity over statute of limitations

A fundamental position that will probably send several cases, including the one about Petr Kažimír, into oblivion. The Supreme Court has put a definitive end to the divergent decisions of the judges. They were not unanimous in their consideration of statutes of limitations after the criminal codes were amended.

While politicians such as Peter Žiga, Gábor Gál, Ján Slota, and businessmen Miroslav Výboh and Jozef Brhel are over their worries, having been acquitted of the charges after the amendment of the Criminal Code, former Finance Minister and Governor of the National Bank Peter Kažimír continued to appear before the Specialised Criminal Court as a defendant.

Kažimír's case cannot be applied

In fact, back in October, the judge was inclined to rule that the new statute of limitations could not be applied to Kažimír's case.

"This judicial farce goes on. I think that the scoundrels of the Central Bank of Slovakia have decided to make an example out of me and we will do everything we can to prevent them from succeeding," said the governor of the National Bank of Slovakia, Peter Kažimír.

Other judges were also divided. They disagreed on how to handle the statute of limitations on older cases - those where charges were brought before the new Criminal Code was in force. In practice, it happened that judges within the same court ruled differently, even though the rules sounded clear on the face of it.

"The limitation period runs from the time the offence is committed. If charges are brought against a particular person within this period, the limitation period is interrupted, in which case the prosecution is not time-barred," says Jozef Čentěš, head of the PF UK Department of Criminal Law.

Ambiguities were resolved only by the Supreme Court

At that time, the defendant is still on trial. The ambiguities were cleared up by the Supreme Court. It issued an imaginary manual for the judges, in which it made it clear that they should follow the new law.

"The provision implies an obligation to assess the criminality of the act and to impose punishment according to the later effective law if it is more favourable to the perpetrator than the law in force at the time the act was committed," Supreme Court spokeswoman Alexandra Važanová said.

"To put it very simply, retroactivity in favour of the offender is permissible," said Professor of Criminal Law, vice-dean of the PF UK library Tomas Strémy.

There is an exception

However, there is an exception. Since crimes involving European money are punished more severely, judges have to follow the original - longer - time limits in Eurofund cases.

"This legislation is not balanced because, on the one hand, it distinguishes between Slovak money and European Union money for the same crime. I do not know of any European Union country where they change the statute of limitations for prosecution four times a year. We are unique in this respect," thinks Jozef Čentéš, Chair of Criminal Law at the Faculty of Law of the Charles University in Prague.

Shorter statutes of limitations do not automatically stop cases involving EU funds, when various speculative entrepreneurs used the money for a purpose other than the project for which it was originally intended.