Parliamentary sub-committee to debate alleged attempts to influence courts

A parliamentary sub-committee responsible for the judiciary is to meet over suspicions that President Miloš Zeman’s chancellor, Vratislav Mynář, had repeatedly tried to influence the courts in cases relating to the Office of the President or ones in which President Zeman had a vested interest.

According to the weekly Respekt, Mynář had repeatedly met with judges to inform them about the president’s stand on given court cases. The former president of the Supreme Administrative Court Josef Baxa told journalists that Mynář had, on several occasions, told him what outcome of a court case the president would welcome.

The reports have stirred concern on the Czech political scene with some MPs calling for the matter to be debated at a special session of Parliament.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said in connection with the scandal that he trusted Czech judges to be impartial whatever information they received.