Helena Válková (YES), chairwoman of the Mandate and Immunity Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, will start the meeting on Tuesday at half past nine in the morning, and a record will be set. Even triple. Never before in the history of the lower house of parliament has the committee discussed any criminal cases in three terms. However, the position on the publication of Babiš and Svoboda will be discussed for the third time.

The former Prime Minister, current chairman of the YES movement and MP Andrej Babiš is accused of subsidy fraud and damage to the European Union’s financial interests. According to the police, he shot his holding Agrofert as the owner of the company Čapí hnízdo in order to achieve a subsidy of 50 million crowns for small and medium-sized companies for the construction of a farm and hotel in Olbramovice in the Benešov region. Otherwise he would not be entitled to them.

Babiš regained his parliamentary immunity after the October elections. Supervisor prosecutor Jaroslav Šaroch will also become a co-holder of the record. He was at the committee meeting in August 2017, when the Chamber of Deputies first received a police request for Babiš’s extradition, and after the election of the next Chamber of Deputies in January 2018. No public prosecutor had to go to the committee three times.

Without Babiš, the committee will not comment

“The public prosecutor has accepted the invitation and will arrive,” confirmed Committee Chair Válková to Aktuálně.cz. Sharoch will be available to Members to help clarify any ambiguities relevant to their decision. “He will appear before the Mandate and Immunity Committee,” Aleš Cimbala, a spokesman for the Municipal Public Prosecutor’s Office in Prague, where Šaroch operates, also assured Aktuálně.cz.

Babiš also received an invitation. Participating here is not clear. He did not respond to Aktuálně.cz questions. His presence is a condition for the committee to be able to adopt a resolution. The conclusion will guide the final decisions of the Chamber of Deputies on Babiš’s criminal future. “He has the right to comment on this and we will follow my usual procedure,” Válková explained.

Committee members had more than three weeks in the criminal file to familiarize themselves with the case. Strict security measures accompanied his storage in a special room. The members of the committee had to sign a secrecy, they were only allowed to study the file in the mentioned room. The courier delivered the file to the Chamber of Deputies shortly after noon on December 7. He returned to the prosecutor’s office on December 30.

Supplemented file for Stork’s Nest

In the second half of last September, Babis was proposed to charge criminalists. However, Prosecutor Sharoch did not have time to decide on their request before the October elections, after which the head of the ANO movement reaffirms parliamentary immunity. Police in the meantime completed the file. An expert opinion became a part of it. It concerned the transfer of several shares in the Stork’s Nest company, which Babiš’s son Andrej was to acquire.

“I was in the United States from 2008 to 2010 and I couldn’t sign anything,” he said earlier of the time Babis Jr. took place. The transfer signature is not his, but it is forged. It was the expertise of scribe Aleš Čulík that was to clarify whether the signature was genuine. The expert submitted the report in early December. His conclusion is not public.

Together with Babiš, his former election adviser Jana Mayerová, with whom he worked as the Minister of Finance of the Government of Bohuslav Sobotka (ČSSD) in the previous period, also remains in the Čapí nest of the prosecution. As an expert on subsidies, she was to help Babiš hide Agrofert as the owner of the project. “Some affairs are still being organized for me, which someone is trying to create from the past,” Babiš denied guilt. Mayer also insists on innocence.

Unjustly convicted Svoboda

Member of Parliament Bohuslav Svoboda has been convicted since September 2016 of violating regulations on competition rules and violating the obligation to manage other people’s property. The Municipal Court in Prague thus punished him for his role in the Opencard case. Svoboda was to make a mistake in the years 2010 to 2013, when he was the mayor of Prague.

The Opencard card had several services for Praguers, whether it provides public transport tickets or access to the library. The project was completed in 2015 by the Prague City Hall under the leadership of Mayor Adriana Krnáčová (for YES). As of the following year, the card, which was held by 400,000 people at one time, is not issued. The municipality replaced it with the Lítačka card, the administration of which it has full control over.

The Opencard project was launched before 2010 by the former mayor of Prague Pavel Bém (ODS). It was supposed to cost 89 million crowns, but the price increased to a billion. On the contrary, the card provided fewer services than Bém announced. After joining, the new political team tried to save the project. Under previous contracts, it awarded it without competition to the licensee, Haguess. However, this is exactly what Svoboda and his colleagues were guilty of, according to the court.

“Democracy in this country will end here. You know very well that I asked the House to extradite me myself. I do not regret it, I thought it would show that there is justice in this country. We still have a lot to fight against.” on the judgment Svoboda on leaving the courtroom. Another former mayor Tomáš Hudeček (TOP 09) also received the same punishment, but this was later cleared by the Court of Appeal.

“As usual about the release”

As Svoboda mentioned when evaluating the verdict, the Chamber of Deputies extradited him for the first time to prosecute him. It was January 2014. The investigation led to the aforementioned invalid sentence. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison on probation with a three-year probationary period. However, part of the case did not go before the High Court of Appeal in Prague. At that time, the new Chamber of Deputies refused to prosecute him in January 2018.

Without the consent of the current Chamber, it will not be possible to conclude part of Svoboda’s part of the Opencard case in this election period either. The former mayor of Prague Aktuálně.cz has confirmed that he will attend Tuesday’s committee meeting. “And as usual, I will apply for extradition,” he added. The last time the Chamber of Deputies complied with his request, only 49 of the 147 deputies present raised their hands to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.

In the case of Babiš and Svoboda, it is not clear whether the committee will endorse the opinion for the plenary of the Chamber on Tuesday. It will depend on whether, in addition to Svoboda, the head of YES also arrives. “But the committee will certainly submit a proposal to the Chamber of Deputies by the end of January, I am quite convinced of that,” Válková said. However, if she does not decide on Tuesday, Válková will have to convene the committee once again by the end of the month.