Fico: Zilinka Gives Coalition Reasons for Lawful Changes to Prosecution Service
Bratislava, 24 September (TASR) - Prosecutor-General Maros Zilinka is giving the governing coalition every reason to make fundamental legislative changes to the functioning of the prosecution service, as his tenure has stripped the Office of the Prosecutor-General of its last remnants of public trust, Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) declared on Thursday.
Fico spoke in response to a decision by the Prosecutor-General's Office, according to which the actions of police and the Bratislava Regional Prosecutor's Office in the case of donating military equipment to Ukraine were lawful. Fico has also called a news conference on the issue for Friday morning.
Smer-SD's parliamentary vice-chair Tibor Gaspar disagrees with the Prosecutor-General's decision, although he said decisions by state authorities must be respected. He believes the Defence Ministry should consider filing a constitutional complaint, as he fears that the decision could allow any defence minister to "give away" state military property, regardless of the fact that the agreement under which this took place was not approved by Parliament as an international treaty and MPs therefore did not decide on it. "If such a procedure is considered lawful, there's a risk that military assets will be given away depending on the particular minister's view of any given military conflict," he told reporters in Parliament on Thursday.
Defence Deputy Minister Igor Melicher endorsed the prime minister's comments that the Prosecutor General's Office has definitively taken the side of the opposition. "If the donation of military equipment has not cause damage to the state, prosecutors should consider their positions," he noted in a statement. "Today's decision confirmed that the Prosecutor-General's Office is evidently not bound by the law and that state property can be freely given away," he added.
In a notice distributed by the Government Office, the news conference is announced under the headline 'The Slovak prosecutor general is a political puppet in the hands of the opposition', which is further elaborated on in the notice. "The prosecutor-general confirms on a daily basis that he is beholden to his political masters in the opposition. His tenure has nothing to do with how the relevant laws define the position and duties of the prosecutor-general," the prime minister stated also on social media.
The Prosecutor-General's Office reviewed decisions by police and the Bratislava Regional Prosecutor's Office in the case involving the donation of military equipment to Ukraine. It concluded that the decisions were correct and in accordance with the law.
The decisions concerning the donation of MiG-29 fighter jets, KUB missile launchers and a KUB radar station were reviewed by the director of the Major Crime Department at the Prosecutor-General's Office. He examined the legality of a police investigator's decision of 31 October 2025 to discontinue the criminal proceedings and a decision by a prosecutor at the Bratislava Regional Prosecutor's Office of 26 January 2026, which rejected the complainant's appeal against the investigator's resolution.
The Defence Ministry said at the beginning of the year that it planned to submit a motion seeking a review of the decisions. The Regional Prosecutor's Office stood by the conclusions it had presented.
