News

The Constitutional Court has rejected a complaint by a central figure in a case involving corruption charges against the deputy prime minister Jiri Cunek. Mr Cunek's former secretary Marcela Urbanova had been a key witness behind allegations that Mr Cunek had taken a bribe of half a million crowns or roughly 25,000 US dollars when he was mayor of the Moravian town of Vsetin five years ago. The charges were eventually dropped shortly after the original state prosecutor had been replaced - a move which gave rise to allegations of political interference in the case. The court dismissed Ms Urbanova's motion for procedural reasons, including the fact that she was simply a witness and not a participant in the proceedings and was therefore not entitled to lodge a complaint.

A new opinion poll by the MORI sociological institute indicates that the Civic Democrats are still the most popular party in the country but have lost ground to their main rivals the Social Democrats. According to the survey, the Civic Democrats would win 33.9 percent of the vote if an election were to be held now, while the Social Democrats would garner 29.8 percent, an increase of nearly 8 percentage points since the last poll conducted by the same institute. MORI's research also indicates that the Communist Party would finish third in an election with 13.1 percent of the vote followed by the Greens and Christian Democrats with 10.7 percent and 6.3 percent respectively.

The head of the Prague State Attorney's Office Lubos Petnik has been dismissed according to the Czech Press Agency (CTK). Citing what it calls a "trustworthy" source, CTK claims that the Minister for Justice Jiri Pospisil fired Mr Petnik "for insufficient managerial activity" and replaced him with the head of the Prague 1 District State Attorney's Office Jana Hercegova. Mr Petnik had been head of the Prague State Attorney's Office, which manages 10 district attorney's offices, since 1999.

Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has criticised a decision by the Association of Czech GPs to close doctors' surgeries on 19 September in protest at what they say is a failure on the part of national health insurance companies to offer them higher fees for medical services. Mr Topolanek said it was wrong for the doctors to take such action before completing negotiations with health insurers. The one-day strike is the third such protest-action by Czech doctors this year. The Association of Czech GPS maintains that primary medical care is deeply undervalued in this country, which puts financial pressures on doctors and limits their ability to provide quality service. The Association has also urged doctors not to conclude any new contracts with health insurers until an agreement has been reached with them on higher fees for medical care.