Top Prague prosecutor appeals his firing

A top Prague prosecutor recently dismissed by Justice Minister Jiří Pospíšil has appealed his firing, thus delaying the appointment of a successor.  

Vlastimil Rampula was removed from his post last month with the backing of Supreme State Attorney Pavel Zeman and Transparency International in the wake of accusations that he failed to investigate and prosecute several high-profile corruption cases. He filed an appeal in early August, but with the ultimate decision-making powers remaining with Pospíšil, he seemingly has little chance of retaining his post.   

The appeal, which a ministry spokeswoman said will delay a replacement by two months, must proceed through an Appellate Committee within the ministry that issues an advisory opinion before Pospíšil makes a final call.

"The decision was issued by a prejudiced body. ... Already it is clear in advance how it would be decided," Rampula told journalists when he filed the appeal.

He said justification for his dismissal was based not on his inaction, but on their disagreement with his verdicts, and that ministry officials are trying to replace him with people with closer ties to Zeman.

"The reasons the minister cited are vague. In the statement, there is nothing written about how I drove prosecution, or how I should have managed it properly," Rampula said.

The ministry has declined to comment on Rampula's allegations beyond saying the decision, detailed in a 36-page document, was based on a "rigorous analysis of the professional assessment of Rampula's performance," conducted in an "impartial, professional, nonpolitical basis of Justice Ministry lawyers," said ministry spokeswoman Tereza Palečková.

Transparency International and Zeman have been pushing for the dismissal of Rampula for some time. The move is part of a larger ongoing effort to "clean out" the judiciary from a series of appointments made during Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek's government that were allegedly part of an expansive web of backroom deals resulting in what some called the creation of a "judiciary mafia."  

"[Rampula's] installation into the position was absolutely unsystematic. ... He was young, one of the bottom state attorneys in east Bohemia, and [former Supreme State Attorney] Renata Vesecká installed him into one of the key positions in state prosecution," said Stanislav Beránek, a project manager with Transparency International.

'Failures in practice'

Vesecká was dismissed earlier this year during another long and drawn-out battle because of her 2007 decision to shelve a key corruption investigation into then Deputy Prime Minister Jiří Čunek of the Christian Democrats.

In its defense of his dismissal, the ministry cited Rampula's decision to not appeal a court decision that cleared seven suspects of wrongdoing in the questionable bankruptcy of Investment Post Bank, and his overall inadequacy in using "his authority to manage and encourage methodical activities in investigating serious economic and financial criminality," as well as addressing "failures in practice of prosecutors in criminal proceedings."

"This institution was extremely ineffective, which is suspicious," Beránek said. "It is statistically impossible to have prosecuted so few cases. Even if it was incompetence, there would have been two or three cases."

More recently, Rampula has been linked to a decision not to pursue criminal charges against former Environment Minister Pavel Drobil in an alleged kickback and bribery scheme, as well as to allegations that he leaked a key witness' name in an investigation of a questionable tender related to the government purchase of Pandur military vehicles.

Deputy Supreme State Attorney Libor Grygárek has come out in Rampula's defense, saying Rampula's office had succeeded in ramping up the amount of complaints they serviced in the past few years. He said in 2010, 14 cases were filed resulting in 19 indictments involving 144 people, compared with an average of around 10 cases per year before Rampula took office.

Rampula's dismissal should not be the end of the ministry clean-up efforts, Beránek said, as there are still a number of judiciary members linked to corruption and cover-ups, but that it was a step to help "restart the system."

"State prosecution will not be reliable until there are personnel changes," he said.  

Cat Contiguglia can be reached at
ccontiguglia@praguepost.com