Slovakia's president to send criminal law changes to Constitutional Court

By Jason Hovet

(Reuters) -Slovak President Zuzana Caputova on Friday sought to block legislation scrapping a special prosecution branch dedicated to high-level crime and lowering punishments for financial crimes by sending them to the Constitutional Court for review.

Slovakia's parliament approved the laws introducing the changes last week amid public protests as well as concerns, including from the European Union's executive, over the bills being pushed through in a fast-tracked procedure.

Caputova told a televised news conference that rather than veto the laws, she would sign them and send them to the court, where she was also seeking their suspension.

This would give the court more time for review than under a veto, and she said the court was the best place to decide on the plans amid a conflict between Prime Minister Robert Fico's government and opponents of the overhaul like herself.

"Therefore the necessary prerequisite for my submission to the Constitutional Court is that I had to sign the amendment even if I do not agree with it, and that is why I am contesting it at court," Caputova said.

"It is the only way to allow the effects of the amendment not to be triggered even for a single day."

The changes would lower sentences, for example for misuse of EU funds, for corruption, tax fraud, theft, or manipulation of public tenders.

Sentences for many crimes would be changed to suspended sentences or home detention, and time limits on how long crimes, including violent ones, can be prosecuted for would be shortened.

Fico's government argues its aim is to modernise the criminal code and address what it calls excesses at the Special Prosecutor's Office and its bias against the now-ruling SMER-SSD party.

Fico vowed to continue to push for the legislative changes to come into force, saying Caputova's latest steps have made her a puppet for the opposition.

"We will do everything so that the dark times of 2020 to 2023 are never repeated in Slovakia," he said in a Facebook video.

The opposition and other critics say the changes will protect Fico's political and business allies from investigations.

Following a 2020 election victory by anti-graft parties, which put Fico's party into the opposition, the Special Prosecutor's Office opened more than 100 cases against business leaders, members of the judiciary and the police.

Fico, who returned to power for a fourth time after his party won a September election, himself faced police charges which were later dropped.

Slovakia's biggest opposition party, Progressive Slovakia, welcomed the president's referral to the court, saying it was best placed to assess such vast changes to the criminal code.

The European Commission called on Bratislava not to fast-track the changes after they were introduced in early December, and has raised concerns over some of their aspects.

(Reporting by Jason Hovet in Prague; Editing by Alison Williams, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Tomasz Janowski and Hugh Lawson)