Czech Court found no reason to dismiss Rampula - ministry

Pospisil dismissed Rampula on the proposal of Supreme High State Attorney Pavel Zeman in October.

The ministry has already received the court´s verdict, which has taken effect.

"The court believes that the reasons that Supreme State Attorney (Zeman) formulated in his proposal are not sufficient for Vlastimil Rampula to be dismissed," Ludvikova said.

The court cancelled Pospisil´s (Civic Democrats, ODS) decision on Friday.

Rampula is expected to return to the helm of the High State Attorney´s Office (VSZ) in Prague on Wednesday.

Zeman told CTK today that he has terminated his deputy Stanislav Mecl´s mandate as interim VSZ head and that Mecl will return to his home Supreme State Attorney´s Office (NSZ) in Brno after handing the VSZ office over to Rampula.

Ludvikova said the verdict is now being studied by the ministry´s experts.

Pospisil can file a cassation complaint against the verdict scrapping his dismissal of Rampula with the Supreme Administrative Court within two weeks.

The complaint, however, does not have any impact on the effect of the verdict.

Pospisil told Impuls radio later today that he and Zeman will now discuss ways to continue their efforts to dismiss Rampula. They want to decide on further steps to be taken by Friday, he said.

Dismissing Rampula last October, Pospisil said Rampula breached law and that "he did not always behave so as not to give rise to a reasonable doubt about his impartiality."

Pospisil said the dismissal was correct not only from the legal point of view, but also from the matter-of-fact and moral points of view.

Pospisil said Rampula made mistakes in the case of Investicni a postovni banka (IBB) bank and also failed to react to wrong decisions his subordinate state attorneys made in several cases.

Daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) wrote today that Zeman is preparing another proposal for Rampula´s dismissal on Pospisil´s initiative. According to MfD´s information, the case of privatisation of the Mostecka uhelna spolecnost (MUS) could be a reason for another attempt to dismiss Rampula.

Zeman has not confirmed the information for CTK, however.

Rampula and his three subordinates at the VSZ face a disciplinary action over protracting the MUS case investigation. Filing the action recently, Pospisil proposed that they be stripped of their status as state attorneys. The four have dismissed any mistakes on their part.

The filing of actions was proposed by the NSZ based on the results of a check of the VSZ´s work that Mecl had ordered on arrival at the VSZ as Rampula´s replacement last autumn.

Calling Rampula´s return unacceptable, anti-corruption watchdog NGOs say he repeatedly failed in the past and has "nothing to do in a democratic country´s judiciary."

Moreover, Rampula is suspected of acting in accordance with political interests in some cases, the NGOs, Public Against Corruption and the Anti-corruption Fund Endowment said.

Czech Transparency International branch head David Ondracka said the VSZ head should possess personal integrity and trustworthiness.

"Mr Rampula lacks both for reasons that have been repeated many times and that can be summed up as suspected marring of the prosecution of serious crimes and suspected contacts with people linked to organised crime," Ondracka told CTK.

He said Pospisil, in his effort to clean the state attorney´s office, deserves support that should also be provided him by Prime Minister Petr Necas (ODS).

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz