Czech press survey - January 3

Being of no use to presidents, amnesty benefits the pardoned criminals, Steigerwald writes.

What about common people who cannot enjoy amnesty because they do not stay in jail? Should they praise the head of the state for being merciful as kings used to be? This seems inappropriate in democracy. That is why people seek different reasons [for accepting amnesties]. They wrongly believe that the president should correct mistakes made by courts, Steigerwald says.

In fact amnesty brings no benefit to the society at all. Many people, including the president, would sigh with relief if parliament abolished this obsolete habit, Steigerwald writes.

President Vaclav Klaus, who in his New Year´s speech warned against "instigators of bad moods," must know that people´s bad mood largely arises from the fact that large-scale criminals among officials and businessmen have escaped justice, but still he has definitively pardoned a number of such infamous figures with his amnesty, Petr Kambersky writes in Hospodarske noviny.

The presidential amnesty, in force since January 2, also applies to suspects whose prosecution has dragged on for more than eight years.

Kambersky gives "mafia judge" Jiri Berka, fraudster Frantisek Chvalovsky, and bosses suspected of pilfering Union banka, the Trend fund and the Quantum company as examples.

Never punished large scale thieves and corrupt figures have been the source of people´s bad mood for the past 20 years. Granting pardon to them amounts to definitively closing the era of the building of fraudulent capitalism, Kambersky writes, possibly alluding to the era of Klaus´s two governments in the 1990s.

President Klaus, whose mandate expires in March, will have exactly the type of a monument he deserves, Kambersky concludes.

President Vaclav Klaus New Year´s assessment of the Czech society in 2012 somewhat contradicted to the assessment Prime Minister Petr Necas (Civic Democrats, ODS) presented at the end of the year, Jan Keller writes in daily Pravo.

Klaus said in his New Year´s speech that success of Czechs is unthinkable without their return to traditional values. This is at variance with politicians´ everyday appeals for people to be as flexible as possible, innovative and fully adaptable, Keller writes.

Klaus would like the Czech Republic to be competitive on the dynamic world economic scene. What will help Prague prevail over foreign economies? Sticking to old values, according to Klaus. What a brilliant recipe, Keller writes.

Both Klaus and Necas asserted that the living standard of Czechs is as high now as never before. On other occasions, nevertheless, they tend to criticise the society for living beyond its means. The question arises of whether the high living standard is a positive fact or whether it is unpardonable, Keller says.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz