Czech press survey - August 16

It is a manifestation of clumsiness, but also another argument for that Czechs have too many national elections that do not allow the government to rule between individual campaigns, Weiss writes.

Elsewhere in Lidove noviny, Daniel Kaiser writes that Andrej Babis, a friend of former Social Democrat PM Stanislav Gross as well as former interior minister Ivan Langer (Civic Democrats, ODS) at the time when they were powerful, a man who receives in subsidies about the same amount that he pays in taxes, is not the first Czech big businessman to buy media.

But he is the first who wants to combine media ownership and a political party, Kaiser writes alluding to Babis´s new party, ANO 2011.

Kaiser says Babis explained his entry into politics with the wish to stop mounting corruption. But why is buying the Internet server Aktualne.cz that has been mapping corruption for a long time and without Babis? Kaiser asks.

It is stupid to accumulate power. Babis has economic power (he is owner of the food giant Agrofert) , and now he also wants media and political power, Kaiser writes.

If the Czech Repubilc wants to belong to the better part of the world, custody must be neither a penalty nor a method of investigation, Petr Honzejk writes in Hospodarske noviny about former Central Bohemia governor David Rath who has been held in custody for three months.

Rath was caught red-handed with seven million crowns which is believed to have been a bribe in mid-May.

The Czech Republic uses custody more frequently than neighbouring countries, Honzejk writes.

He says this need not be illwill, but inertia (it has always been doen so), indolence (why to be in a hurry with investigation), caution (what if he did run away).

This attitude amounts to a lack of respect for the fundamental principle of law - presumption of innocence, Hnzejk writes.

With extending custody without any firm reasons, the judiciary makes it clear that the accused person is not de irue innocent from its point of view, but "an ill-bread" person who no more deserves serious treatment, Honzejk writes.

He writes that this brings Czechs closer to the civilisation on the level of Russia where courts have convicted an absolute majority of the accused in Burma because "if someone gets to court, there must be something true to the accusation."