Robert Fico has expressed his dissatisfaction with the much-debated current shape of the Act on the Origin of Assets. The shape and effectiveness of the law, which is supposed to uncover cases of illegal gains, has been at the centre of dispute in Slovakia for years.
Fico is calling for the scope of the law to be limited only to people in public posts, such as politicians, mayors or judges, but this would mean that those involved in organised crime and corruption would be exempt from proving how they acquired their wealth and property.
Fico is claiming that the law should be aimed only at ‘big fish’, public officials, but that in its current semblance it is basically being abused by people who have some personal vendetta against their neighbours, for example.
It was Fico himself who proposed the law, but now he is calling for its scope to be limited. Interior minister Daniel Lipsic does not see the problem in who the law does or does not apply to, but in the fact that it is too easy to bypass.
Lipsic already made his reservations known when the law was adopted, because it is enough for those under suspicion to say they received a large sum of money or a loan from some distant relative, and so this effectively puts them in the clear. Lipsic therefore does not support the new proposal of Robert Fico and could very well produce his own proposal instead.
Since the law was adopted, the Attorney General’s Office has received around 200 initiatives regarding suspicions of excess wealth, none of which concerned politicians or those suspected of being criminals. At present the law applies to assets that exceed 1,500 times the minimum wage.