Justice Ministry examining communist past of judges
A Czech judge has been suspended from office on suspicion of having collaborated with the secret police, the StB, under the Communist regime. Last week, it was revealed that Prague High Court Judge Jitka Horova is on the Interior Ministry's list of StB collaborators and that dozens of active judges managed to slip through the country's so-called screening process, determining whether people in influential posts have a clean slate from the time of the old regime.
With a history of over forty years of authoritarian rule, Czech law states that any citizens who are to hold influential posts, judges included, have to go through a screening process to prove they never collaborated with the Communist secret police. The so-called 'lustracni zakony', or screening laws, came into force in the early 1990s with the purpose of preventing former Communist agents and other people associated with the former regime from taking government and civil service posts.
Secret police archives list Mrs Horova as an StB collaborator under the codename "Sazava" but she denies the allegations. She says that the StB approached her, asked her to cooperate with them because she had friends in the United States, but that she refused:
"I never signed any document promising to collaborate with them and I'm going to do everything I can to clear my name."
Judge Horova became a judge after the fall of communism, but what became of those who had already been working under the old regime? Judge Jan Vyklicky says the chances of any StB collaborators wearing the judges' robe today are slim:
"I don't understand the people who say that all judges, who were judges before the revolution are still judges today. It's not true. One half of all the judges left the judiciary at the end of 1989. I think there were 1,200 judges, of which 600 left."
"The first one was something like a wild purge. I remember that in the first few weeks in 1990, the former Minister of Justice, Mrs Buresova, asked some judges to leave the judiciary because of their behaviour before the revolution and some of them - perhaps dozens rather than hundreds - did so. During the second phase the Committee for the Protection of Unjustified Investigated Persons had a list of judges with a problematic past from before 1989 - some 25 people - and they were screened. Some of them had to leave the judiciary. During the third phase, I remember hundreds leaving for better-paid jobs outside the judiciary. Of course, I don't know whether they left because they had some problems from the time before the revolution or because they wanted to have a better job and more money."
An anonymous caller brought attention to Mrs Horova's alleged collaboration with the StB. After Prague's High Court realised that it had never received her screening certificate, it asked the Interior Ministry, which administers the StB archives, to screen Judge Horova's past. The Ministry confirmed that the archives state Mrs Horova had indeed collaborated with the StB.
The investigation which followed showed that Mrs Horova was among 134 people who were appointed as judges in 1992, without needing to prove their past record. Some of them forwarded their screening certificate anyway, others have since left the judiciary, but a dozen have yet to provide any prove that they did not collaborate with the secret police. They have been given an ultimatum by the Justice Ministry.
Mrs Horova plans to file a law suit against the Interior Ministry and take the case to court. The Ministry's spokeswoman, Radka Kovarova, says the ministry is not to be blamed for any lack of clarity:
"We have had the list of names of StB collaborators posted on our website for two years now. It is simply a transcript of the StB archives that we inherited. We've had a wave of protests from people on the list, saying they are innocent. Of the 80,000 people listed, several hundred have objected. It must be said that the list we have does not say to what extent people were involved. All it says is that the StB had them in their files - whether they collaborated with them or not has to be proven."
Judge Vyklicky also points out that the fact that a person is not on the list of StB collaborators does not guarantee his innocence. The names of top StB collaborators could have been kept top secret and may not even be in the secret police archives:
"In fact, you could have been a very active collaborator without featuring in the records. Some say that the highest collaborators are not registered, which would be very logical."
Interior Ministry spokeswoman Radka Kovarova:
"Of course, the process with which we screen people is a little more complicated than a simple look at a list of names. The officials in charge also look through other documents for written evidence. But it is only the courts, which can make a final ruling. They not only look into the files but also find witnesses. They get the testimonies of various people who knew the defendant and find out whether he was at all in a position to influence or harm anybody at the time."
Judge Horova now has to take her case to the regional court. The case can work its way through to the court of appeals and even the High Court - a process that could take months. Jan Vyklicky says his colleague will remain innocent unless proven guilty but for many Czechs, Mrs Horova's reputation is already shattered.
"For her, the damage is fatal. Of course, if she will be successful in court in the end, I'm afraid that a significant number of persons in our population will not believe her. So, it was not correct to publish this case before the court decision or some other way how to clear her name is accepted."
