Businessman Heiti Hääl spoke at length about Hillar Teder on ETV's "Esimene stuudio" talk show. Teder was convicted of influence peddling, but according to Hääl, he was simply trying to stand up for his rights.

"The Hillar Teder case comes down to the fact that he was accused of trying to stand up for his rights as a businessperson and the feeling an entrepreneur has when they just can't break through the wall of bureaucracy at Tallinn city government — that's completely understandable. In Teder's case, I'd say that in major European cities, when an investor comes along with a multi-hundred-million-euro investment, they're welcomed at city hall, the mayor hands over a business card, scribbles their mobile number on it and says: 'If anything's stuck or you have concerns, give me a call.' Unfortunately, life in Estonia is the exact opposite," said Hääl.

According to Hääl, a major issue in Estonia is the country's small size, which fuels politicians' reluctance to engage with entrepreneurs.

"The biggest problem, it seems, is the size of our country. Everyone knows everyone. Politicians don't dare speak with businesspeople because they're almost certainly being listened in on if they're making decisions about a project tied to someone they know. And of course, that creates the appearance of corruption," Hääl said.

In Teder's case, Hääl feels the court punished an innocent man. He expressed the same view regarding sworn attorney Küllike Namm, who was found guilty of knowingly and extensively violating a procedural restriction set out in Estonia's Anti-Corruption Act.

"In both Hillar's and Küllike Namm's cases, they were acquitted in the first instance. As we know, the first instance is where the judge hears all the witnesses, and in my opinion, that's when the judge gets the full picture needed to make a ruling. After that comes the circuit court, where three judges shuffle papers around in some office and decide that the lower court judge got it all wrong and that the prosecutor was right about everything. That the witnesses were wrong. And to me, that's starting to look like a pattern," the entrepreneur said.

Hääl believes the entire process needs reform so that entrepreneurs don't end up in legally ambiguous situations where they can't even tell if what they're doing is lawful or not.

"This isn't just about Tallinn — it affects all municipalities. The planning process should be understandable. It can't be this endless string of bureaucratic red tape with no clear boundaries. When an entrepreneur submits a proposal, under the current Planning Act, the authorities can submit an unlimited number of revision requests. Logically, the municipality should say once, within a set timeframe, what doesn't fit, what should be changed, and if no agreement is reached through discussion, then the entrepreneur can say, 'This plan won't fly, I can't do it.' But right now, the process drags on into eternity, and I don't think that's how life should move forward," said Hääl.

The entrepreneur also stated that, in his view, both Küllike Namm and Parvel Pruunsild were simply trying to do charitable work.

"Pruunsild was trying to find a new building for the Sakala student corporation, of which he is a member, and Namm was trying to enable the construction of a small marina in Käsmu's captains' village — something that, according to the opinion poll conducted by the municipality, a clear majority of local residents strongly supported. The dangerous precedent here is that if charity becomes a criminal offense, then sports and culture in this country are in serious trouble," Hääl said.

"I read the circuit court decision in Küllike Namm's case and thought, with fear, that Alexela spends hundreds of thousands every year supporting culture and sports. And considering that criminal offenses expire after seven years, in Alexela's case we'd be talking about many millions — and apparently, I should be going to jail for life," said Hääl.

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