Former Justice Minister Jüri Adams said there was still too much confusion in the case to say whether one side or the other was right. But he said it was clear that the minister should not interfere in the prosecutor's work.

"The Public Prosecutor's Office is formally and legally part of the Ministry of Justice, so the Public Prosecutor's Office is like a department of the Ministry of Justice. But the Ministry of Justice, and the minister of justice, do not have the right to order or prohibit anything in the work of the Public Prosecutor's Office, in other words, the Public Prosecutor's Office must be essentially independent," Adams said.

Jaan Ginter, professor of criminology at the faculty of law at the University of Tartu, said that there are no grounds for disciplinary proceedings against the prosecutor general in this case. According to Ginter, Laanet's explanation that he was interested in various cases because he wanted to help the prosecution is also invalid.

"Directing attention can sometimes be helpful, but I don't see where the minister would have assisted the prosecutor's office," he said.

In the worst-case scenario, Ginter believes that the minister's actions may have been motivated by dissatisfaction with the police chiefs' handling of the case.

"Suddenly, the minister of justice wanted to close more criminal cases against these police chiefs and was unhappy that only the cases of a few high-ranking police officers had been closed and other high-ranking police officers were still under investigation. That would be the worst thing that could happen. But there are indications in what's happening here that this may be the case," Ginter said.

He said the case was a classic example of the problem of the separation of powers, because when the executive branch begins to micromanage the work of the prosecutor's office, the prosecutor's independence is lost.

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