Czech President Miloš Zeman re-proposes controversial candidate for Deputy Public Defender of Rights
Czech President Miloš Zeman has proposed two candidates for the post of Deputy Public Defender of Rights, both lawyers, Zdeněk Koudelka and Petr Scholz. Both candidates, in his view, have extensive experience and expertise.
Presidential spokesperson Jiří Ovčáček posted the news to the president’s website without any further details. The Senate is accepting nominees until 7 October to replace Deputy Public Defender of Rights Monika Šimůnková, who resigned at the end of August.
Zdeněk Koudelka resigned from the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) to join the Eurosceptic, hardline, national conservative movement led by Václav Klaus, Jr. called “Tricolor”. During the COVID-19 pandemic he also filed several lawsuits with the Supreme Administrative Court against the measures underway to combat the disease.
The president says that both of his candidates meet the legal prerequisites for executing this office. “Given the broad yet specific activity of the institution of the Public Defender of Rights, their extensive experience and expertise guarantees that each of them will be eligible to contribute effectively and in a qualified way to executing the jurisdiction of the Public Defender of Rights,” Ovčáček said.
Koudelka was a social democratic MP from 1998 to 2006. He has been considered more than once as a possible candidate for Justice Minister.
Between 2006 and 2011 he was Deputy Prosecutor to the Supreme Prosecutor, Renata Vesecká, and from 2011 to 2013 he was Deputy Director of the Academy of Justice in Kroměříž. From 2014-2018 he was the Rector of the Karel Engliš College.
Zdeněk Koudelka resigned from the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) to join the Eurosceptic, hardline, national conservative movement led by Václav Klaus, Jr. called “Tricolor”. During the COVID-19 pandemic he also filed several lawsuits with the Supreme Administrative Court against the measures underway to combat the disease.
Koudelka was nominated previously by Zeman for Deputy Public Defender of Rights in 2019. Many public figures protested that proposal at the time.
The call not to choose Koudelka was signed by the former chair of both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, Petr Pithart; by the director of the People in Need NGO, Šimon Pánek; by former spokespeople for the Charter 77 dissident organization, Dana Němcová and Věra Roubalová; by screenwriter David Smoljak; by MEP Jaromir Štětina; by the former director of Czech Radio’s Vltava station, Petr Fišer; by the director of the ROMEA NGO, Zdeněk Ryšavý; and by former MP Monika Horáková (today Mihaličková). As for candidate Scholz, he has worked as Deputy Financial Arbiter for the Energy Regulation Authority’s internal ombudsman, where his job was to beef up consumer protections.
Šimůnková resigned as Deputy Public Defender of Rights because she disagreed with the opinions of the Public Defender of Rights, Stanislav Křeček, and with his approach to that role, both on a personal level and a professional one, for which he has also been criticized by the Senate. Křeček and Šimůnková had long held different positions on many issues.
In July, Křeček removed Šimůnková’s entire agenda from her purview. Alleged delays in resolving cases was the reason he subsequently gave for that move.
Šimůnková rejected that allegation. The situation was reviewed in July by the Chamber of Deputies’ Committee on Petitions.
That committee declined to take a side in the dispute. Choosing a new Deputy Public Defender of Rights must be undertaken by the Chamber of Deputies within 60 days of the post being vacated, according to the Act on the Public Defender of Rights.
The lower house will select the Deputy Public Defender of Rights from the candidates proposed by the president and the Senate. The head of state and the upper house can nominate two candidates each, and those proposals can be for the same nominee(s).
