1st August 2018

NSZ: Analysis brings objective facts about the criminality of elected representatives of regional and local governments

The Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office (NSZ) prepared an  Analysis of Criminal Activity of Elected Officials of Territorial Self-Governing Units. The detailed document was created at the request of the Constitutional Law Committee of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic and maps comprehensively all criminal proceedings concerning municipal, regional politicians over a period of five years (2013-2017). The material analyzes the hard data provided by all branches of the Public Prosecutor's Office across the Czech Republic, and its findings largely correct some inaccurate information that appears in the public and media space in connection with this issue.

The NSZ analysis shows, in particular, that this crime area is  a statistically  totally negligible fraction of the total crime volume . This is  less than 0.03%  of all criminal proceedings (over a period of five years it is 438 cases with a total of 1 331 328 criminal proceedings).

The dominant source of knowledge to  initiate criminal proceedings  in criminal matters of elected officials of territorial self-governing units comes from  criminal notices from natural or legal persons. More than three-quarters of all cases are based directly on criminal complaints, and are not due to the overwhelming activism of the Police of the Czech Republic or other public authorities.

Neither was the assertion that law enforcement authorities - in particular prosecutors and police authorities - are switching to criminal repression against elected officials of territorial self-governing units. A total of  84.2% of the  completed cases were  terminated without a criminal prosecution of a particular person.

The analysis also examined the length of criminal proceedings. In the media, sometimes the long-term uncertainty of elected local government officials is referred to because of the duration of criminal proceedings. The analysis shows the  standard course of criminal proceedings in criminal law cases .

 

 

Source: Supreme Prosecutor's Office

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