Finance minister defends decision on audit

The finance minister has defended his decision not to release the results of an audit at the Constitutional Court. Minister Kalousek came under fire from the economics daily Hospodářské Noviny on Thursday which suggested that he had moved to prevent the release of an audit which uncovered abuse of public funds at the Constitutional Court. The paper wrote that the audit had uncovered irregularities in accounting for petrol and other problems. Finance Minister Kalousek said in response to the article that the chairman of the Constitutional Court Pavel Rychetsky had questioned the audit in connection with the court’s independence, which was guaranteed by the constitution. Mr. Kalousek said that he did not want to take issue with this argument and had decided not to take the matter further.