President: Governing Coalition Has Problem with Quality of Legislative Process

Bratislava, January 3 (TASR) - The entire governing coalition has a problem with the quality of the legislative process, as recent months have seen a number of bills being passed in a fast-tracked legislative procedure, with amendments to bills unrelated to the original legislation also being an issue, TASR has learnt in an interview with President Peter Pellegrini, who stated that he wants to consider the laws more strictly. Pellegrini claimed that his team strictly examines whether or not the approved legislation violates the protection of human rights or the Slovak Constitution. He doesn't view it appropriate for the president to interfere in the powers of the government and go deep into the content of the amendment itself just because he doesn't like it. "If every bill that has an amendment introduced during the parliamentary session, which wasn’t there before or wasn’t directly related to the original amendment, had to be returned, I would have to return almost every single one," Pellegrini noted. The president plans to address the legislative process in his State of the Republic in Parliament. In his own words, he wants to warn the government and MPs that from a certain point on, he will judge laws more strictly. "But for now, we are really more focused on unconstitutionality or violation of certain rights," the president added. lin