Václav Láska: I consider justice, security, nature protection, equal rights for women and rights for LGBT as priorities
The lawyer by education became famous especially when, as a senator, he filed a constitutional lawsuit against President Miloš Zeman. As he says in the interview, he is not going into this year's election to make promises. He intends primarily to hold people accountable. He has been involved in politics since 2014, when he first ran in his district Prague 5.
In this year's Senate elections, you are defending your senator mandate. What topics are you going into the elections with?
Since I am defending my mandate, I'm not going into the elections with promises, but rather presenting my account. I'm presenting what I've done for people over those six years and asking them if they are satisfied with it and if they will give me their trust for another mandate. Otherwise, my long-term priorities are justice, security, nature protection, but also equal rights for women or LGBT rights.
How successful has your role as senator been so far?
For the electoral district I'm running for, my free legal advice service is probably very important, where I advise people on their problems with state institutions or local government and often also help them in their fight against some aggressive developers. Over my two terms, I have helped about 900 people in this way. In terms of legislative work, these are successes in a number of laws. Recently, for example, the redefinition of the crime of rape, stricter penalties for animal cruelty and many others. I also managed to stop the ratification of the convention with the Holy See, as it disproportionately expanded the confessional seal and thus prevented the investigation of certain crimes within the ranks of the Catholic Church. I consider my biggest failure to be that the Senate refused to consent to the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, that is, the convention on combating violence against women.
At the same time, you are also leading the SEN candidate list for Prague to the Prague City Hall. What is it like to manage both roles?
The combination of the work of a senator and a municipal politician is quite common and usual, but leading both campaigns at once is extremely demanding. In case of success in both elections, I plan to give up my law practice and focus only on my political roles.
What ambitions does your grouping have from a city-wide perspective?
We want to get 10 to 15 percent of the votes.
In the past you've worked as a police officer, journalist, lawyer, and even led the board of directors of the anti-corruption organization Transparency International. What made you decide to go into politics?
Most of all, it was the experience from Transparency International, when politicians told me for so long that "something simply can't be done," until I decided to get among them and show through my own example that things can be done when you "simply want to."
And what did people around you say about it?
They probably knew before I did that I would try politics one day. I was very much involved in it from my position at Transparency International, followed it, tried to influence it. And those who know me knew well that one day it would stop being enough for me to do these things "from the outside" and that I would simply try it. So they weren't surprised at all.
Why do you think people should go to the polls now?
I'm not the type of politician who would persuade people to go vote. Voting is a right, not a duty. I'm always happy for the highest possible voter turnout, but I won't order people to go to the polls if they don't want to. I'd rather try to convince them through my work so that they want to go vote.
Václav Láska is a lawyer, former police investigator and chairman of the board of Transparency International. In October 2014, he was elected senator for district No. 21 – Prague 5. Between 2014 and 2017, he was a member of the Green Party. In December 2017, he founded the Senator 21 movement and became its chairman. In the 2020 Senate elections, he defeated Michael Žantovský in the second round. In 2022, he also became a councillor of the Prague 5 municipal district.
Source: author's interview, Wikipedia
