Babiš Convicted, Okamura Acquitted: Two Weeks That Revealed the Independence of Czech Courts

In the first week of September, Czechia saw two court rulings involving politicians whose coalition, since last year's elections, has earned a reputation for "temporary impunity." The High Court found Jana Nagyová guilty — the former accountant to Andrej Babiš at the Agrofert holding, now a Member of the European Parliament — in the "Stork's Nest" case. Meanwhile, the SPD party and its chairman, Tomio Okamura, were acquitted in the case involving controversial pre-election posters depicting a "surgeon from abroad."

Neither ruling came as a surprise — the likely outcomes had already been anticipated last year. The current Prime Minister (Babiš), whom the verdict against Nagyová directly concerns, currently enjoys parliamentary immunity. For his political career, this offers a fresh incentive: to keep winning every subsequent election and remain at the head of the ruling majority, so as never to find himself in his former employee's position.

A Controversial Acquittal for SPD

The SPD party and its leader, also currently shielded by parliamentary immunity, were acquitted by the court in the case concerning posters depicting a Black man holding a knife, captioned with a reference to "surgeons from abroad" — imagery that sparked widespread public outrage. The court's decision drew considerable criticism in society, yet from a liberal standpoint, erring on the side of expanding the boundaries of free speech is preferable to narrowing them: not everything that seems repugnant is automatically illegal. What matters more is that society itself reaches a consensus that such rhetoric is unacceptable.

Even before last year's elections, the Chamber of Deputies had for the first time stripped Okamura of immunity to allow criminal prosecution, and the entire scenario was carried out down to the last detail. Now the SPD chairman may well come to regret that the case concluded so swiftly — he has lost the chance to spend years portraying himself as the victim of politically motivated persecution of "courageous dissidents." Instead, he has gained another useful confirmation: Czech justice, for all its imperfections, operates independently — even when the ruling favors him. Perhaps it's worth explaining this to his coalition partner Babiš, who acknowledges judicial independence only when rulings happen to go his way.

What Lies Behind the Acquittal

The discussions surrounding the acquittal also raised substantive arguments — for instance, that the court's decision effectively legitimizes a particular style of political campaigning that was, until recently, considered unacceptable in society. This is indeed happening, and a few clarifications are worth making here.

First, the hope that criminal prosecution for verbal statements alone would somehow foster greater tolerance in society is naive at best and dangerous at worst. Second, the "everyone knows what we mean" style that flirts with popular racism is not an exclusive trait of SPD: back in 2013, the Christian-democratic politician Marian Jurečka employed similar rhetoric while promoting a plan "against the abuse of social benefits" (he later publicly apologized for it).

And third — perhaps most importantly — it was not the court that legitimized Tomio Okamura as an acceptable political figure with a "slightly harsher" style, but rather, much earlier, Andrej Babiš himself, when he made Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies a man who, since 2014, has systematically questioned the very fact of the Roma Holocaust. And even if the court eventually rules differently in the SPD or Okamura case once his immunity expires, the current 2025-2029 parliamentary term will not be able to rewrite its reputation.

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz