Final Word from Friday, June 15, 2007
Ex-Justice Minister Pavel Němec and Senior State Prosecutor Renáta Vesecká share more in common than the occasional coffee break. They've both shown an unusual ability to use a little-known loophole to justify a major incursion into normal legal procedure. Němec did it first when he personally intervened in 2005 to extradite a Qatari prince found guilty in the CR of abusing underage girls. The Supreme Court upheld Němec's decision, but he's never shaken suspicions that he received a suitcase or two for rendering the service. Now, Vesecká has intervened personally to remove the local prosecutor in the Jiří Čunek corruption case, although the regional state attorney found no need for action. The similarities of the two cases are impossible to overlook. Our bet is that it was Němec himself who found the loophole in the Čunek case and presented it to Vesecká over a cup of cappuccino.[Czech Republic Hamid bin Abdal Sani]