Slovakia, Bratislava - Vice-chair of the Christian Democrats (KDH) Daniel Lipsic told a press conference on Tuesday that he is about to submit a legal proposal on proving the origin of property to Parliament, as well as a constitutional amendment proposal that would enable the act to be passed.

Prime Minister Robert Fico announced a similar intention on Monday - with a proposal that concerns property that exceeds 1,000- or 1,500-times (€300,000 or €450,000) the minimum monthly salary and was acquired after the year 1990.

Lipsic's proposal concerns property exceeding 500-times the minimum monthly salary, with no time limits on acquisition included. "If there is a time limit, it will be nothing more than a political spectacle," stressed Lipsic, arguing that it wouldn't be difficult to bypass the law if a time limit were introduced.

If Fico excluded the disputed point, Lipsic wouldn't rule out supporting the Government's legislation. "I don't care who claims the credit or who calls the first press conference," he said.

According to Lipsic's proposal, it would be possible based on an official initiative to look into whether a physical or legal entity would have been able to acquire a certain amount of property within a given period of time via legal activities. "The first selection of complaints will be looked into by the financial police. If it is believed that the difference between the value of the property and legal incomes is higher than €150,000, the case will be passed to the Prosecutor's Office," said the former justice minister.

If the Office finds the financial police's move justified, it will call on the person in question to provide a deposit equalling the value of property that may have been acquired from illegal sources. Then the person would be obliged to prove that the property concerned could have been acquired legally. "If the person doesn't provide evidence within five years that the property came from legal sources, it will be confiscated to the state's benefit," said Lipsic, stressing that this is not a retrospective law, as the legality of property will only be assessed under legislation valid at the time when it was acquired.

The constitutional amendment, along with the five-year period during which people will be able to regain the property, will, according to Lipsic, ensure that the law will have "body armour" at the Constitutional and European courts. "Let's not give people with enormous properties the chance to challenge the law," he stressed.

The Government is slated to discuss a draft of the property disclosure act as well as a so-called small amendment to the Slovak Constitution at its session due on January 13, Fico told a press conference on Monday. Both initiatives have already been submitted for fast-track legislative proceedings. The property disclosure bill is set to include the same provisions that were labelled as anti-constitutional by Slovakia's Constitutional Court. It concerns, for instance, a provision on retroactivity as well as on the burden of proof, as the act proposed that an individual should be obliged to explain how they acquired their property.

The new bill proposes that people prove the origin of property that exceeds 1,000 or 1,500 times the minimum wage as of January 1, 1990, with Fico more inclined towards the former option. Fico also spoke about the so-called small amendment, "We'll include a new paragraph in Article 20 of the Slovak Constitution that will allow for approving an act that will deal with illegally-acquired property or with situations in which somebody has bought such property using illegally-acquired income." The amendment should then open the way for the property disclosure act to be passed.

(TASR)