The parliament in the current election period is the weakest and worst functioning. This is a consequence of the actions of the current governing majority. This was stated by the chairman of the opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) Michal Šimečka in an interview for TASR. According to him, a number of laws refer to the “cutting out” of people close to the government from prosecution and responsibility. According to him, these are not only harmful, but also unconstitutional. At the same time, Šimečka drew attention to the shifting of important points and the fact that the parliament behaves as if it were subordinate to the government.
“I’m a relative newcomer to the Slovak parliament, I’ve been there for over two years, but from what I’ve seen and what I remember from past election periods, under the leadership of this government coalition, this is the weakest, worst-functioning parliament that produces the worst laws,” declared Šimečka, saying that it is a consequence of the actions of the current government majority. “We see a lot of laws that are not only bad and harmful, but also unconstitutional and unconstitutional,” he added.
According to Šimeček, the government coalition devoted a lot of energy only to “cut out” from the accusations and responsibility of “their people”, especially the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Tibor Gašpar (Smer-SD). “I feel that the governing majority had no other, more important goal for the entire two years than to work to protect their people from justice,” he noted.
He drew attention to changes in the Criminal Code, the abolition of the Office of the Special Prosecutor’s Office or the abolition of the Office for the Protection of Whistleblowers. “It’s as if nothing else matters to them, and they still do it all so poorly that it needs to be fixed x number of times,” he added that citizens expect their parliament to pass laws primarily to improve their lives.
According to Šimeček, the parliament pushes a number of practical and important proposals, such as the transposition of European directives, months ahead of itself and moves them from meeting to meeting. “I’m afraid that at the end of the election period, at this rate, there will be dozens of things that were never discussed,” he noted. He reminded that the parliament is supposed to be sovereign over the government and to control it, but in this period it rather submits to the executive. “Whatever Robert Fico and the government want, the parliament will immediately fulfill it, while it should be the other way around, the government is responsible to the parliament, the deputies represent the people and sometimes we act as if we are not in a parliamentary democracy,” he emphasized.
He also criticizes the gradual deterioration of the culture in the parliament. “The fact that the government majority refuses to discuss the dismissals of ministers and the entire government for more than a year, I consider contempt for the parliament and the voters, and it is also on the border of the constitution that recognizes this institute. The fact that practically every law has to go through an abbreviated legislative procedure, or the debate will be cut off, or it won’t open at all, is something we didn’t have here. Even (former Prime Minister Vladimír, note TASR) Mečiar did not allow himself this style,” pointed out Šimečka.
The leader of the PS stands behind the reaction of the movement, which expressed its disapproval of the laws in parliament and by “booing”. He pointed out that compared to the behavior of the coalition representatives, this is a decent form of protest.
