Monday’s resignation of Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas over a massive corruption scandal may well mark a new era of judicial independence in the Czech Republic and possibly the whole post-communist region.

The Prime Minister’s chief of office Jana Nagyova, a regular in the tabloids and allegedly his lover, has been arrested and stands accused of illegal spying and bribing of MPs.

Two military intelligence officers and two former members of parliament face similar charges. Necas himself denies any wrongdoing.

The government, composed of a coalition of right-wing liberal and conservative parties, is resisting opposition calls for a fresh election, hoping to weather the storm with a mere government reshuffle.

Necas, who is intent on leaving politics following last week’s events, tendered his resignation to the President on Monday. He will remain in his post until a new prime minister is appointed.

“This is a good sign of some judicial independence in governance structures,” Petr Lebeda, director of the independent think-tank Glopolis told IPS.

“It could be encouraging for judicial systems in other countries. A message has been sent that there is no such thing as impunity for politicians and high public officials, that anybody who does something illegal can be sued for his crimes.”

Indeed, news of the corruption scandal and the subsequent resignation have sent shockwaves across Central and Eastern Europe, with the media following developments closely.

In the face of weak institutions, the region’s media and particularly investigative journalists have played a crucial role in uncovering corruption scandals and in pushing authorities to act, as is frequently recognised by international anti-corruption organisations such as Transparency International (TI).

Slovakia is witnessing the re-emergence of a public debate on the lack of independence of prosecuting and judicial bodies as well as on politicians’ lack of will to tackle corruption systematically.

In a statement published last year, Transparency International singled out the Czech Republic and Slovakia as home to particularly weak prosecuting bodies, describing them as “vulnerable to direct political influence because of their strictly hierarchical and non-transparent organisational structures.”

In one comment published by leading Slovak daily Sme, commentator Roman Pataj accused the government of “occupying key posts in the Slovak judiciary” and termed its policies in this field as “non-transparent” and “disastrous”.

There were similar reactions in Hungary, where also politicians could be heard: Gergely Karacsony, leader of the opposition party Dialogue for Hungary, reacted by making fresh calls for an investigation into a recent tobacco retail tender which controversially benefited government supporters and their relatives.

Karacsony lashed out at the country’s state prosecutor, calling on him to follow the Czech example while criticising his inactivity: “He lacks the expertise and the courage to step up,” he said, accusing him of protecting government “mafias”.

The Czech scandal has reverberated because it is inserted in a region that faces very similar challenges. The most frequently corruption-related malaise in the region involves unlawful party financing, manipulation of state institutions by political and economic interest groups, murky ties between the business and political classes, and weak prosecuting bodies.

There is also a clear East/West divide: TI’s corruption perception index shows Central and Eastern Europe lagging behind all of Western Europe with the exception of Italy. Among post-communist countries, only Estonia fares well in the index.

Hence the fall of the Czech leader caught many by surprise, not because of the high-level corruption, but due to the fact that authorities acted: “Justice only worked at the lowest levels, once it reached the top levels it would never lead to the courts,” Lebeda said.

While prosecutions of high level officials are not unseen in the region, they are usually reserved for opposition politicians, and convictions are rare.

What makes the Czech Republic different from the rest of the region is the fresh “emancipation of the office of public prosecutor and consequently anti-corruption police,” Ondrej Cisar, a political scientist at the Czech Academy of Sciences told IPS.

“Making a sort of sweeping analogy, one can say that we are going through a prosecutors’ revolution, similar to the judges’ revolution in Italy in the beginning of the 1990s,” Cisar added.

Ironically, Necas himself may be responsible for his own fate, as he ended an old habit – not just in the Czech Republic but in all of post-communist Europe and beyond – of placing political appointees to judicial posts.

Following years of media criticism of various governments over the prevalence of an alleged ‘justice mafia’ that protected high-profile politicians from prosecution, Necas named Pavel Zeman as chief prosecutor in 2010.

Zeman, perceived as an independent, played a key role in strengthening the independence of various prosecution and judicial bodies as well as in starting a wave of prosecutions that reached its climax last week.

This process was one that the “government probably did not actively support, but also did not block,” Lebeda told IPS. The weakness of the coalition government may thus have been a blessing in disguise, preventing any particular political force from asserting its authority over the judiciary.

The Czech foreign ministry has insisted the country’s support for human rights is “not for sale” after calls from the prime minister to drop “fashionable political causes” such as supporting the Dalia Lama and the jailed Russian pop group Pussy Riot.

The Dalai Lama is the spiritual and political leader of Tibetans. Pussy Riot is the Russian music group whose members were jailed over singing critically of President Vladimir Putin.

In a country which produced one of the most famous dissidents in recent history, Vaclav Havel, and where human rights and support for dissidents against authoritarian regimes has been a pillar of its post-communist foreign policy, the remarks have sparked outrage.

Human rights activists condemned the comments from Prime Minister Petr Necas, while Foreign Minister Karol Schwarzenberg, who earlier this year publicly denounced the jail sentence for the Pussy Riot band members in Russia, described the prime minister’s remarks as “horrifying”.

His ministry issued a statement saying that support for human rights was a matter of principle which was “not for sale”.

But business groups, as well as the economy minister, have seized on the prime minister’s comments and are now calling for a rethink on Czech foreign policy – a change activists have said would be both wrong and naive.

Jakub Klepal, director of the Forum2000 foundation which Havel helped establish, told IPS: “A principled position on human rights cannot be exchanged for economic trade. What the prime minister said was plainly wrong.

“But moreover, changing the government’s stance on foreign policy and human rights would not have any effect on the economic policies of countries like China and Russia anyway. Such large countries are not going to alter their economic planning based on the opinions of a small country with a population of 10 million people.

“The Czech Republic has had a principled policy on human rights for decades and yet trade with China has been doing very well in recent years despite this. There is no need to change it.”

Less than five percent of Czech exports go to China and Russia, and the Association of Exporters said publicly following the prime minister’s remarks that support for the Dalia Lama or Pussy Riot would have no negative effects on the country’s exports.

Human rights have been a central pillar in Czech post-communist foreign policy. Championed by former president Vaclav Havel, a public supporter of the Dalia Lama, the country is known diplomatically for its strong stance on rights.

The country’s communist past also means that the idea of support for rights, and dissident protest in particular, resonate strongly in wider Czech society.

Because of this, it is unsurprising that Necas’s comments attracted widespread criticism from politicians across the political spectrum as well as media commentators and rights activists.

Speaking at a trade fair in the city Brno attended by Russian and Chinese firms, Necas said: “We must prevent some fashionable political statements that, objectively speaking, affect our exports.”

He said the Czech Republic was committed to a “one China” policy and that “admiration (of the Dalai Lama) is not support for freedom and democracy.” He added that a Tibetan regime would probably have “a half-feudal, theocratic character with strong authoritarian elements.”

The prime minister has since tried to defend his comments and pointed out that in a later part of his speech he made clear his support for human rights.

But his open questioning of the economic consequences of supporting some high-profile rights causes has spurred some business leaders to openly criticise the country’s foreign policy, especially towards China.

Jan Kohout, head of the Czech-Chinese Chamber, an economic and trade promotion group, told local press the comments should be seen as “the beginning of a vital public debate on the relationship between foreign and export policies as a measure to tackle recession.”

Meanwhile, Economy Minister Martin Kuba, a member of PM Necas’s right-wing ODS party, told local media the government should “rapidly and seriously discuss the Czech Republic’s relation to some countries.”

He added that “the philosophy that the foreign ministry is here only because of foreign relations and does not respect the fact that it is so dependent on exports – our share of exports in GDP is almost 80 percent – is not sensible.”

These views have been dismissed by other politicians who argue that while trade is vital to the country’s prosperity, commitment to human rights should always take priority over economic interests.

Former prime minister and candidate in upcoming presidential elections, Jan Fischer, told Czech press: “The promotion of Czech economic interests is one of the government’s obligations, but its concern for human rights in the world must not be sacrificed. Business must not come before freedom.”

Others, though, say that pursuing economic interests and championing human rights need not be mutually exclusive, even when dealing with countries where human rights violations are a concern.

Forum2000’s Klepal told IPS: “People here who know the history of their country have been certainly shocked by the suggestion of giving up principled foreign policy for the very short-term benefits of economic trade, because that is what always happens in cases like this – the benefits are very short term.

“However, a principled policy on human rights as part of foreign policy can be compatible with positive economic engagement with countries where there are human rights concerns.”