Czech parliament shields PM, speaker from trials

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis delivers his speech in the Czech Parliament on March 5, 2026. [AFP]

The Czech parliament on Thursday declined to strip the prime minister and parliament speaker of their immunity as lawmakers, protecting them from standing trial in criminal cases.

Prime Minister Andrej Babis is facing EU subsidy fraud charges, while Speaker Tomio Okamura is charged with inciting hatred.

A total of 104 lawmakers in the 200-seat parliament of the Czech Republic, an EU and NATO member of 10.9 million people, voted against lifting their immunity.

Babis leads a nationalist coalition government with 108 lawmakers, comprising his catch-all ANO party, Okamura's far-right SPD and the small eurosceptic Motorists, following general elections last October.

The 71-year-old Slovak-born Babis is facing charges over fraud from 2007, concerning his Stork Nest farm south of Prague.

Babis allegedly took the farm out of his sprawling Agrofert food and chemicals holding to make it eligible for an EU subsidy for small companies worth more than over $2 million, before returning it to the group.

The seventh wealthiest Czech, with assets worth almost $4 billion according to Forbes magazine, Babis already stood trial twice and was acquitted, but a court of appeals overthrew both verdicts.

Babis, in office since last December after also serving as premier in 2017-2021, called the charges "an effort to reverse the result of a democratic election" in parliament on Thursday.

"The criminal charges are clearly politically motivated... if I had not entered politics, nobody would ever have heard about the Stork Nest," he added.

Pursuing an anti-immigrant policy, Okamura is charged with inciting hatred over 2024 European election posters depicting a black man with a blood-stained knife, saying that "imported surgeons will not resolve our health sector's shortcomings".

He too dismissed the "purpose-built" charges as designed to "defame and criminalise political opponents".

Critics have suggested Babis and Okamura have become allies despite many divergent views in a bid to back each other up in parliament for the vote.

The Babis-led government has been under fire since taking office with dozens of thousands of protesters taking to the streets on several occasions to slam its policy.

Babis's government has curbed aid to war-ravaged Ukraine and fostered close ties with EU troublemakers Hungary and Slovakia, whose leaders,Viktor Orban and Robert Fico,are Babis's long-time allies.

The Million Moments for Democracy movement, which brought a quarter of a million protesters to a rally during Babis's first stint as premier, is planning a large protest on March 21.