Susko: Penal Code Amendment Fulfilled its Purpose

Bratislava, December 27 (TASR) - The Justice Ministry managed to meet all targets and goals it set out for 2024, particularly the passing of new Penal Code and making changes to the penal state policy, which was also one of the fundamental items in the Government Manifesto, Justice Minister Boris Susko told TASR in an interview. "In my view, the amendment to the Penal Code fulfilled the purpose we pursued and that is to fundamentally change the state penal policy from repressive to restorative, so that the main purpose is not just the punishment for the punishment's sake, but rather to reeducate perpetrators, so that they can be reintegrated back into society after some time," explained the minister. The second goal was to introduce higher level of variance in the sentencing, to take into account first and foremost whether perpetrators of economic crimes paid for damages their crime caused. Susko rejected media reports of the mass release of hundreds of convicts from jail, whose sentences no longer hold after the Penal Code changes. However, the minister still sees room for improvement in the application practice. To that end, a platform was formed to have individual regional court judges and representatives of the Supreme Court discuss incongruences and unite different judge opinions on the application of the new rules. Another success in Susko's view was the amendment to the Civil Code in terms of helping consumers with their consumer contracts and the provision of legal aid to people in material need. mf