Final Word from Friday, July 25, 2003
Outgoing Justice Minister Pavel Rychetský has won praise for bringing key Czech laws into harmony with the EU. He admitted in Právo, though, that he's leaving judicial reform at the half-way point. Jan Jandourek wrote in MFD MF Dnes that Rychetský has been associated over the years with key failures: Companies were tunneled, communist-era crimes went unpunished, the courts worked slowly. This is true, but there's another way to look at it. Rychetský has always mirrored the times. When tunneling was in vogue, he was making it possible. When the CR had to clean up its act to join the EU, there he was again. Now he's leaving judicial reform unfinished, benefiting those who know how to profit from the status quo. Rychetský has been the quintessential Establishment man. There's no reason to expect anything else from him when he joins the Constitutional Court.