Olympics did not slow PM Fico down from dismantling the rule of law (Zeitgeist 17.)

One might think, that the politicians cheering and waving flags for their teams in Olympics would take a break from systemic dismantle of the rule of law, but one would be wrong. In the previous month happened a lot, Prime Minister Fico traveled to meet President Trump in Mar-a-Lago, Marco Rubio traveled to meet Robert Fico, Robert Fico threatened everybody by stopping the emergency electric power to Ukraine. And that was only a part of foreign policy.

Table of Contents:

1. SMER aligned oligarch convicted in corruption case
2. Prime Minister verbally attacking judges, again
3. Prime Minister and his crew verbally attack the Constitutional Court
4. The Constitutional Court gives the Court of Justice a chance to stop the politicization of public media
5. Prime Minister announces raids on NGOs
6. Ambiguous concepts to create a chilling effect
7. Battle of the General Prosecutor and Prime Minister
8. €2 billion power plant project without a public hearing
9. The Constitutional Court preliminarily stopped the amendment of the Criminal Code
10. Consequences of the new Criminal Code amendment
11. How dangerous for democracy is “bringing normal back“ ?
12. It has been eight years since the loss of Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová 

At home, February 2026 brought developments in Slovakia that together paint a troubling picture of democratic backsliding, judicial independence under assault, and systemic weakening of anti-corruption capacity. The month’s most prominent court ruling came from the Specialised Criminal Court in Banská Bystrica (first instance court), which found oligarch Jozef Brhel closely tied to Prime Minister Fico’s Smer party guilty of money laundering and bribery in the Mýtnik case. Prime Minister Fico responded by personally and publicly attacking the presiding judge.

The government’s hostility toward independent institutions extended to the Constitutional Court, with Government Office head Juraj Gedra falsely insinuating that foreign ambassadors influenced the court’s ruling striking down the anti-NGO law. Despite the Constitutional Court’s ruling, Fico announced extended government audits of NGOs, while also proposing a new land registry amendment that would introduce fines of up to €50,000 for „evaluating individuals‘ property holdings“ an undefined legal concept that critics warn could be weaponized against investigative journalists and anti-corruption watchdogs.

Slovakia’s Constitutional Court separately referred preliminary questions to the Court of Justice of the EU regarding the 2024 STVR law that replaced public broadcaster RTVS, raising concerns about political control over the new broadcaster’s governing bodies and whether the law’s timing was designed to circumvent the incoming European Media Freedom Act. General Prosecutor Maroš Žilinka made headlines by publicly describing Slovakia’s anti-corruption fight as „catastrophic”, and revealed that PM Fico personally visited him to urge him to soften findings submitted to the European Commission.

The amendment on cooperating defendants, rushed through parliament just before Christmas, was suspended by the Constitutional Court. Rounding out a grim month for democratic norms, the parliamentary majority passed new rules of procedure by cutting short debate and rewriting months of expert negotiations through a last-minute amendment.

1. SMER aligned oligarch convicted in corruption case

The Specialised Criminal Court in Banská Bystrica found Jozef Brhel, an oligarch and a businessman closely tied to Prime Minister Fico’s SMER-SD party and his son guilty in the Mýtnik corruption case, convicting both of money laundering and Jozef Brhel additionally of accepting a bribe related to nearly €54 million EUR in IT procurement contracts at Slovak Financial Administration during previous SMER-SD led governments.

Neither of them will serve prison time: the elder Brhel received a four-year suspended sentence and a record €1.5 million fine, his son the same suspended sentence with a €1.2 million fine, along with suspended sentences for two further co-defendants, as criminal code amendments introduced by the current Fico government, had significantly reduced the applicable sentencing ranges, making suspended sentences possible where they previously would not have been. The court found that the Brhels had inserted themselves into the IT company through a complex offshore corporate structure, contributing virtually nothing while earning approximately €6 million, and that the Financial Administration had unlawfully classified the contracts to conceal the predetermined selection of the company as the winning bidder.

Presiding judge Hrubala firmly rejected claims of political motivation, stating that evidence of political interference amounted to zero, while identifying dozens of pieces of evidence of guilt. This was a first-instance decision and defendants may appeal.

2. Prime Minister verbally attacking judges, again

It did not take long for Prime Minister Robert Fico to respond and publicly attack judicial independence, personally targeting judge Ján Hrubala following a verdict in the case of his associate Jozef Brhel, delivered by the Specialized Criminal Court.

PM Fico stated: „Mr. Hrubala, twice drunk, once crashed, you don’t mind! He goes to Trenčín for a political song, he performs there,“ alluding to the fact that Hrubala was a guest at the Pohoda festival. Such behavior by a head of government is dangerous in a democratic, rule of law state, as it undermines public trust in the judiciary. This is not an isolated incident since the start of Fico’s fourth government; verbal attacks by government politicians against judges and courts have increased significantly, with ministers responding to unfavorable rulings with personal attacks or threats of disciplinary proceedings, as Minister Šutaj Eštok did against a Bratislava city court judge.

Fico himself has escalated his attacks progressively, starting with accusations that the Constitutional Court coordinates its decisions,  then threatening the Constitutional Court’s President with removal, and subsequently targeting judges of the Supreme Court and, now, the Specialized Criminal Court.

3. Prime Minister and his crew verbally attack the Constitutional Court

Last month, the Constitutional Court of Slovakia released the full decision suspending the law on non-governmental organizations, ruling it unconstitutional, triggering a sharp political reaction from the Government Office. Juraj Gedra, head of the Government Office, who himself faces criminal charges, publicly undermined the court’s independence on social media, claiming the ruling was not the result of purely legal reasoning but of external political pressure from abroad.

Gedra specifically pointed to visits made by ambassadors of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France to Constitutional Court President Ivan Fiačan prior to the verdict, insinuating that these diplomatic contacts had influenced the judges, and he suggested a similar pattern occurs with other independent institutions, citing meetings between ambassadors and Prosecutor General Maroš Žilinka as another example. The Constitutional Court responded, rejecting any link between the diplomatic visits and its ruling, which had in fact been issued on December 17, 2025.

Spreading unsubstantiated speculation seriously undermines public trust in constitutional institutions, particularly when such statements come from a senior government official. The French Embassy directly rebutted Gedra’s claims, pointing out that the visit of their diplomat to the court took place on March 19, 2025, while the NGO law was only passed by parliament on April 16, 2025, making any attempt to link the two events entirely without factual basis and stressing that such institutional exchanges are a normal, regular, and transparent part of diplomatic practice.

4. The Constitutional Court gives the Court of Justice a chance to stop the politicization of public media

Slovakia’s Constitutional Court has referred several preliminary questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning the compatibility of the 2024 STVR law, which replaced the original public broadcaster RTVS with a new entity, with both the Slovak Constitution and the EU’s European Media Freedom Act (EMFA).

The law has been discussed in Brussels as potentially constituting an infringement, largely because of the way it restructured the governance of the public broadcaster: four of the nine members of the STVR Council are appointed and dismissed by the Minister of Culture, one of them on the proposal of the Minister of Finance, while the remaining five are elected by parliament by simple majority. Further concerns include vague selection criteria for council members, an overly narrow list of incompatible functions that has allowed people with close government ties to serve on STVR bodies, and weak guarantees of editorial independence with no sanctions for breaches.

The Constitutional Court’s five preliminary questions cover whether EMFA requires specific candidate selection criteria, whether the appointment model ensures sufficient distance from executive power, whether ethical commission members need the same independence guarantees as governing body members, whether regulatory oversight is adequate, and — crucially — whether the law’s timing violated the EU duty of sincere cooperation, as it was adopted just before EMFA’s key provisions took effect, raising suspicion that it was designed to circumvent the incoming stricter standards. While the Constitutional Court expressed preliminary skepticism on the sincere cooperation argument, by referring the question to the CJEU, it has given the EU’s highest court the opportunity to rule on whether Slovakia’s restructuring of its public broadcaster breached EU law.

5. Prime Minister announces raids on NGOs

Following the Constitutional Court’s ruling that struck down the anti-NGO law as unconstitutional, Prime Minister Robert Fico responded by threatening that the Constitutional Court would no longer be able to protect NGOs, and proposed a new government measure expanding state oversight of non-governmental organizations to cover not only their finances but also compliance with labor law, occupational health and safety regulations, and protection of personal data.

The PM’s stated justification for this expanded oversight is that the Constitutional Court’s ruling had „practically blocked the possibility of increasing transparency in NGO financing,“ is characterized as a gross inaccuracy, given that the court struck down the law precisely because it violated constitutionally guaranteed rights, including the right to privacy, data protection, and freedom of association. The Constitutional Court’s ruling was not a protection of NGO opacity but a defense of citizens‘ constitutional rights, as the judges themselves confirmed in the decision.

The anti-NGO law was also criticized for imposing administratively absurd obligations that were operationally devastating for many organizations, paradoxically hitting small, community-focused NGOs the hardest, while the government officials who designed the law reportedly had no grasp of its real-world impact. The rule of law organization Via Iuris stepped in after the law’s passage to help civil society organizations navigate the new obligations, producing a detailed manual and running seminars and workshops, effectively substituting duties of the state and the Fico government.

6. Ambiguous concepts to create a chilling effect

Slovakia’s Office of Geodesy, Cartography, and Land Register has proposed and the government has submitted a bill to the parliament, that presents a significant overhaul of public access to land ownership records, which would end anonymous access, introduce mandatory user registration, and charge for official copies, a major change from the current system, where anyone can look up full ownership records online for free without logging in.

However, there is a more disturbing change proposed in amendment to Slovak land-register law as it contains a new provision banning the use of land registry data for „evaluating individuals‘ property holdings and economic behavior.“ The phrase, unlike the already legally defined concepts of profiling and commercial data processing, lacks an established legal definition, creating significant uncertainty for journalists and anti-corruption organizations that could face fines of up to €50,000 for violating it. While the head of the Office of Geodesy, Cartography and Land Register has claimed the provision is not aimed at investigative journalists or watchdogs, there is nothing in the proposed wording to support that assurance, and his statements stand in stark contrast to the broader political climate in which the four-time prime minister has referred to critics as „anti-Slovak prostitutes“ and his chief adviser has spoken of „vetting journalists.“

The introduction of undefined legal concepts is identified as particularly dangerous in the Slovak context, where the legal system is characterized by an ever-expanding accumulation of norms and where any gap or ambiguity is liable to be exploited, especially in an environment where public trust in state institutions is low. The land-register amendment is presented not as an isolated concern but as part of a broader pattern in current government legislation.

7. Battle of the General Prosecutor and Prime Minister

Slovakia’s General Prosecutor Maroš Žilinka delivered his sharpest public criticism of the Fico government to date at a press conference, warning of „alarming findings“ in the fight against corruption and describing the situation as „catastrophic,“ citing full-year 2025 figures showing the number of prosecuted suspects fell by approximately 70 percent year-on-year while indictments dropped by roughly 67 percent.

Žilinka attributed the collapse in anti-corruption capacity to two key reforms pushed through by Fico’s coalition: changes to the Criminal Code that reduced penalties for corruption and shortened limitation periods, and the abolition of the National Crime Agency (NAKA), which was replaced by a new organised crime office that many experienced investigators declined to join. GP also revealed that Prime Minister Fico visited him and urged him to soften the findings in a report being submitted to the European Commission for its annual rule-of-law assessment, a request GP said he refused.

The PM confirmed the meeting but rejected GP Žilinka’s conclusions, accusing the GP of making political statements, while senior Smer figures argued that responsibility for weak investigative results lies with prosecutors, not politicians. Notably, GP Žilinka himself did not oppose the scrapping of the Special Prosecutor’s Office, which had handled major corruption cases, and publicly backed the move in 2024, a fact that complicates his current criticism of the government’s justice reforms.

8. €2 billion power plant project without a public hearing

Environment Minister Tomáš Taraba has been pushing to designate a pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant at Málinec-Látky, a project costing more than €2 billion, as a significant investment, a proposal he brought to the government without prior public discussion. The project prompted several rounds of mass public objections, with thousands of people signing petitions expressing concerns from residents of the Podpoľanie region, experts, businesses and local governments.

A formal dispute resolution meeting was scheduled at the Ministry of Environment to address these objections. Instead of substantive discussion, Taraba spent only three minutes with the public representatives, arrived, declared that disagreements remained unresolved, and left. The meeting cannot even be considered a valid dispute-resolution proceeding, meaning Taraba violated the legislative procedures that Robert Fico’s own government had established for handling such matters. Critics find it scandalous that the fate of the Podpoľanie region and billions in taxpayer money are being decided in this manner, and are preparing further steps together to protect the region and its inhabitants. No substantive discussion has taken place about why the Málinec plant should qualify as a significant investment, and the objections of local residents, experts and municipalities have been entirely ignored.

9. The Constitutional Court preliminarily stopped the amendment of the Criminal Code

The Constitutional Court suspended the effect of an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code concerning cooperating defendants commonly known as the Gašpar amendment, which had been passed through parliament in December by Tibor Gašpar, the indicted vice-chairman of Smer, and signed by President Peter Pellegrini on December 27, despite widespread criticism of both its content and the process of its adoption.

The amendment was introduced as a “freerider” attached to another piece of legislation just hours before the parliamentary vote, with no prior consultation with judges, prosecutors, or investigators, in what critics say violates the law on legislative procedure, which explicitly prohibits amending unrelated laws through such attachments. Under the amendment, testimony from cooperating defendants would have been inadmissible if they gave false statements, withheld information, or received benefits. The challenge was brought by 51 opposition MPs, General Prosecutor and the Specialized Criminal Court, which warned that the changes could undermine serious criminal investigations and have irreversible consequences in ongoing cases. Žilinka’s concerns were echoed by 152 Slovak prosecutors, all regional prosecutors, and the Prosecutors‘ Council.

The suspension does not constitute a final ruling on constitutionality but means the amendment cannot be applied until the court issues its definitive decision; the court will also examine two further December provisions, one criminalising denial of the post-war Beneš decrees and another on election campaign interference, though these were not suspended. President Pellegrini and his advisers were aware of the procedural irregularities surrounding the amendment, yet he signed the law the day before Christmas.

10. Consequences of the new Criminal Code amendment

The SMER-SD-led coalition passed a legislative freerider at the end of 2025, making the use of cooperating defendants in criminal proceedings virtually impossible, ostensibly to address abuses by high-profile witnesses in politically sensitive cases, though critics allege the real purpose was to benefit SMER-linked individuals facing criminal charges. Less than a month after it took effect on December 27, 2025, the amendment began derailing unrelated cases, most notably the international drug-trafficking trial.

The judge of the Specialised Criminal Court suspended the proceedings and referred the amendment to the Constitutional Court, describing it as an „unacceptable intrusion by the legislative branch into the powers of the judiciary“ that would force him to disregard testimony central to the case. The amendment’s core problem, according to the judge Cisarik, is that it prohibits courts from considering any testimony from a cooperating witness who gave false or incomplete statements in any prior proceedings, regardless of context, violating the constitutional principle of free evaluation of evidence and conflating the distinct legal positions of defendants and witnesses. Cisarik is the second Specialised Criminal Court judge to challenge the rider, following Judge Pamela Záleská in the Valčeky case involving oligarch Norbert Bödör. The Constitutional Court now has four separate motions before it from two judges, 51 opposition MPs, and General Prosecutor Žilinka, seeking to strike it down.

11. How dangerous for democracy is “bringing normal back“ ?

The parliamentary majority passed an amendment to parliament’s rules of procedure, claiming it would restore normalcy to parliament, but did so by cutting short debate and rewriting the text agreed upon after months of expert group negotiations through a last-minute parliamentary amendment introduced just days before the vote.

The most consequential change was introduced by Tibor Gašpar, currently the only sitting MP facing criminal charges, whose amendment reversed a provision in the original draft that would have automatically stripped a detained MP of their parliamentary functions, replacing it with a rule allowing an MP in pre-trial detention to retain all their parliamentary positions, including for up to six months. Critics note that Gašpar, who faces charges in the Očistec case and could, in theory, be taken into custody following parliamentary approval, stands to personally benefit from the very amendment he introduced.

The episode is presented as part of a broader pattern of legislative shortcuts, in 2025, the coalition pushed more than 20 percent of all adopted laws through fast-track legislative proceedings and a further 10 percent as MP-initiated proposals, meaning experts, municipalities, trade unions, employer associations, and the general public had no opportunity to comment on nearly a third of all, usually the most controversial, legislation adopted. Majority MPs have also been blocking parliamentary committees and introducing sweeping last-minute amendments that fundamentally alter legislation shortly before votes, precisely as occurred with the rules of procedure amendment.

12. It has been eight years since the loss of Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová

Eight years have passed since the tragic loss of Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová, yet their legacy continues to inspire a nation’s fight for justice and truth. In cities and towns across Slovakia, citizens gathered to honor their memory and reaffirm their commitment to the values these brave individuals stood for. Ján’s words about corruption’s persistent nature still resonate, challenging Slovaks to question whether they truly desire change. Ján and Martina’s sacrifice will not be forgotten, and their dream of a better Slovakia will continue to drive the fight against corruption and injustice.