Interior Ministry Reaches Settlement in Dispute with Andrej Babis

Bratislava, October 21 (TASR) - The Interior Ministry has reached a settlement with plaintiff Andrej Babis in a dispute concerning the protection of his personality relating to unauthorised registration of the Czech ex-premier in the files of the erstwhile communist secret service the StB, acknowledging that Babis had been wrongfully registered as an agent of the StB under the code-name 'Bures' and that he had not knowingly cooperated with the the secret service. "Babis undertook not to make any claims for damages or non-pecuniary harm against the state in connection with this registration, and also to withdraw complaints he lodged with the European Court of Human Rights and not to make any claims for monetary compensation," the ministry said. It stressed that the court settlement was approved by a competent court and was therefore in accordance with Slovak law. The ministry explained that the settlement was reached after a thorough assessment of the legal situation and economic risks associated with the continuation of the litigation. "We had two independent external legal analyses drawn up, which confirmed that there is a high risk of losing the legal proceedings in question," the ministry said, adding that a possible loss in court would entail the risk of high financial losses for the state in terms of compensation. Another argument for the decision was verdicts in a factually identical lawsuit between Babis and the Nation's Memory Institute (UPN). "At all stages of court proceedings, including those at the Supreme Court, Babis was successful as a plaintiff, which significantly weakened our position in this new dispute. The UPN succeeded only at the Constitutional Court because Andrej Babis should have filed a lawsuit against the Interior Ministry and not against the UPN," the ministry said. The Czech ex-prime minister was registered as an agent in the files of the StB, but he's denied his cooperation with the service and insisted that he was registered in the files illegally. In 2012, he filed a lawsuit against the UPN, which insisted that Babis was registered in the files legitimately. zel/mcs