Pursuant to Section 4(2)(d) of the RPVS Act: "A list of end beneficiaries shall be entered in the register for natural persons who are public sector partners, including their first name, surname, permanent address, date of birth, nationality and whether the end beneficiary is a public official performing a function in the Slovak Republic." Pursuant to Section 4(3)(f) of the RPVS Act: "A list of public officials performing a function in the Slovak Republic who are part of the ownership structure or management structure of a public sector partner shall be entered in the register of legal persons who are public sector partners." The RPVS Act refers in the above provisions to Article 2(1) of Constitutional Act No. 357/2004 Coll. on the protection of public interest in the performance of public functions, as amended by Constitutional Act No. 545/2005 Coll. (hereinafter referred to as the "Act on the Protection of Public Interest in the Performance of Public Functions").
According to the explanatory memorandum to the Act on the Protection of Public Interest in the Performance of Public Functions: "The draft constitutional act also applies to representatives of local government, namely mayors (mayors of towns), members of municipal councils, presidents of higher territorial units and members of their councils." the Act on the Protection of Public Interest in the Performance of Public Functions also applies to city mayors, even though they are not expressly defined in the Act, by application of an extensive interpretation, not only members of city councils and members of municipal councils in Bratislava and Košice can be considered public officials, but also members of municipal councils (even though they are not expressly defined in the Act on the Protection of Public Interest in the Performance of Public Functions).
Can an authorized person proceed on the basis of the above interpretation and, therefore, when registering in the RPVS, also list as a public official a person who performs the function of mayor or member of a municipal council?
OPINION OF THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC:
According to the interpretative opinion of the Ministry of Justice, which has been provided on several occasions, for the purposes of the Act on the Register of Public Sector Partners, only persons who are expressly listed in Article 2(1) of Constitutional Act No. 357/2004 Coll. on the protection of public interest in the performance of public functions, as amended by Constitutional Act No. 545/2005 Coll. Therefore, neither the mayor of a municipality nor a member of a municipal council is entered in the register as a public official. In the case of an exhaustive list of persons specified in Article 2(1) of this Constitutional Act, it is not appropriate to adopt an extensive interpretation of the law and thus subject entities not listed in this article to this list.
You can find out who is considered a public official for the purposes of registration in the register of public sector partners in our next article on this topic.
