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Basta: 'Nobody is above the law' By J.M. Giordano 
The house stinks of garbage and someone has to clean it up. Between coming under fire from naysayers such as the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and being chastised by the European Union for building walls instead of tearing them down, the Social Democrats (CSSD) have had their hands full. But can they keep them clean? Jaroslav Basta, minister without portfolio in the four-month-old government of Milos Zeman and head of CSSD's "Clean Hands" project, believes so. Past regimes have talked about cleaning up the country and shedding light on white-collar crime, but Basta is a firm believer in "deeds, not words." The Prague Post's J.M. Giordano met with Basta to talk about the words behind the deeds. The Prague Post: Could you give us an overview of the new Clean Hands project? Jaroslav Basta: It was one of the main issues of our election program and now it is one of the main issues of the government. We see it in two different ways. The first is to concentrate on the future: We must change legislation and become a part of Europe. The other is concentration on the past. TPP: Why is it important to focus on past issues? JB: It is impossible to talk about new problems and not punish crimes from the past. It is a common problem that does not concern only communist crimes but corruption, organized crime and others, too. It influences politics at both regional and higher levels. TPP: Will the new project go after members of the former government or companies associated with a political party? JB: As for me, I am happy to name names. I don't believe in the "no name is to be published" rule. Nobody is above the law. TPP: How do you intend to prosecute those the government considers involved in economic crime? JB: The Ministry of Justice may help, but, since it concerns the whole attitude of society I suppose the professional organizations of judges will play the key role. Everything depends on people -- some courts work, some not. If the district court chairman is a strong person, he makes his employees analyze the cases quickly. TPP: You say the project focuses on analysis, but what about action? JB: The analysis will have several possible outputs. The first and least probable one is that we will come across things that will be dealt with by criminal proceedings, that is we will find out a serious law offense that is punishable and we will, with the help of the analysis, find the offender. The second and much more probable output is discovering serious mistakes. But it will be clear, either thanks to the investigation [that] has already taken place or other evidence, that the crime will not be possible to prove because of evidence shortage or because it will be just on the [edge of the law]. I would like to stress that for the Czech law a fraud is almost impossible to prove because an intention from the very beginning must be proved by criminal proceedings .... The third possible output of the analysis may be that nothing has happened. I assume that most the cases where corruption may be involved will be solved with the help of law, e.g. from Germany. In some German financial offices, proof of Czech state officials' corruption may be found because German tax laws enable firms to add in some ... expenses necessary for obtaining the order, which are mostly bribes. These expenses ... may be as high as 5 percent of the order.... We will obviously try to use these sources of information. It means that in some cases we will ask for help from our neighboring countries. Similar laws as in Germany exist in France, Spain and Italy; not at all in Britain and Scandinavia.... We will have to make all the institutions engaged in economic crime [investigations] work more effectively. They have no results now, so the general situation in the Czech Republic is as it is.... We are beginning to use a checking system at all the levels, which brings very interesting results. Example: When the controlling authorities of ministries are made to do what they are supposed to, they may find out something. They hand it [over] to an investigator, but he does nothing for half a year. We cannot interfere in the professional independence of the investigator, but we may change his superior whose fault it is that the investigator does not work. We will have to make the court deal with matters soon. TPP: What guarantees do you make to foreign investors looking to invest in the Czech Republic? JB: Today we may guarantee only that we will not give important posts to dishonest people and in the future we will try to get rid of those who misbehave. We discussed the government legislative plan for the rest of 1998 and 1999, and there are many new laws concerning capital trade, investment protection. The first thing being done now is that people working at important posts of administration, who might threaten the investors, are checked by the controlling authorities of the ministries and by the National Security Office. The checking includes everything, even the possibility of using information. Our policy is oriented on investor-encouragement activities.... We will try to protect their interests in the future by giving them the opportunity to consult their issues with state authorities to find out about the credibility of their potential partners. I think it should become one of the National Security Office functions, though the law does not order it yet . ... TPP: What current actions are you taking to fight incoming economic criminals? JB: We have lost about seven years and that is a delay difficult to catch up with. At the beginning, we will have to use methods that even we do not fancy. I mean, for example, compulsory visas and further tightening up of the rules concerning residence in the Czech Republic. We will have to introduce offensive organized crime-fighting methods. We will have to improve the cooperation with Russian security sectors because that is our common interest.
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