State attorney calls lawsuit against shadow justice minister ‘a mistake’

The Supreme State Attorney Renata Vesecká has said that it was a mistake for her to sue Shadow Justice Minister Marie Benešová. Ms Benešová criticized Ms Vesecká for her role in the trial of former deputy prime minister Jiří Čunek, who was cleared of corruption charges in 2007. Ms Benešová criticised Ms Vesecká’s intervention in the case, and called the attorney the head of a ‘justice mafia’. Ms Vesecká subsequently took the shadow justice minister to court, but lost the case. On Monday, Ms Vesecká said she now regretted the lawsuit but still believed she was right to react to Ms Benešová’s comments. The supreme state attorney said that she regretted that the public had viewed her as a top judiciary official in the lawsuit, and not as an individual who had been defamed. The Czech Ombudsman Otakar Motejl has since called on Ms Vesecká to resign, as has the head of the country’s Constitutional Court Pavel Rychetský.