PUŠKÁR, Adam. Rehabilitation of František Šubík

The paper deals with the rehabilitation of František Šubík, who is better known to the public by his artistic pseudonym Andrej Žarnov. František Šubík was a professor of pathology and a representative of the Hlinka's Party regime of the Slovak state, as he was a member of the State Council and the main representative of the health care system. It was this regime that in 1943 sent him as a representative to the international commission to investigate the mass graves of Polish prisoners of war in the Katyn Forest, for which the Soviet Union was subsequently identified as the culprit. After the war, he was sentenced to a symbolic public reprimand by the People's Court in Bratislava in 1948 for his participation in the activities of the Slovak State and defamation of the Soviet Union. The fact that he had helped many persecuted people during the regime's existence helped him to receive such a sentence. After the revolution in 1989, suitable conditions arose for the reopening of his case, and in 1999 the Bratislava I District Court acquitted Šubík in the event of his conviction for a report on the Katyn massacre, as the court stated that Šubík provided only truthful information. On the other hand, in the event of Šubík's conviction for serving in the State Council, the Court upheld the conviction, but set aside his sentence and refrained from imposing a different sentence, as a result of which Šubík is legally treated as if he had not been convicted. This is a unique case of the rehabilitation of the Hlinka's Party's prominent convicted by a retributive court.