Court should decide on Czech KSCM's orientation - minister

In reaction to it, KSCM chairman Vojtech Filip said his party did not avoid a discussion, but that he is convinced it was sufficiently transformed.

Kocab said the court should outline a certain framework and conditions for the Communist Party's functioning since the use of some symbols and references to some personalities and ideas from the communist history might be at variance with the Czech constitution.

In its documents, the KSCM, for instance, professes the legacy of Vladimir Illich Lenin and Karl Marx, which Kocab considers unacceptable.

It is not possible to distance oneself from history completely, but one must distinguish the good from the evil, which the KSCM is doing, Filip said.

The Senate commission, headed by senator Jaromir Stetina, also wants the court to decide on the KSCM's fate.

The commission says the KSCM should delete the word "Communist" from its name and it should also repudiate the "Marxist-Leninist" violence as means to reach its political goals.

The commission called on the government to file a proposal for suspending the KSCM with a court.

However, the Interior Ministry did not meet the requirement and Interior Minister Martin Pecina withdrew the issue from the agenda of the cabinet's meeting in late October.

Kocab said today the government only put the proposal aside to re-examine it.

PM Fischer and Kocab are to meet the Senate commission.

Filip, on his part, said the KSCM had sufficiently coped with the past. The KSCM is prepared to participate in one of the next governments, he added.

Autor: ČTK
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