KOSICE, June 29, (WEBNOVINY) — Slovakia’s Constitutional Court has ruled that Supreme Court President Stefan Harabin has breached his obligations related to managing courts, together with obligations on financial and internal audit with his repeated refusal not to allow an audit at the Supreme Court. Stefan Harabin was penalized in disciplinary action, in which the court decided Harabin‘s salary would be reduced by 70 percent for one year. Harabin was not present when the decision was announced, as he is currently on a holiday.
Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska filed disciplinary action against Harabin in November 2010 for his refusal to allow the Finance Ministry to audit the court. Stefan Harabin argued that Supreme Court may not be audited by an executive branch body, represented by the Ministry of Finance, as this would violate independence of the court. He claimed only the Supreme Audit Office (NKU) is entitled to control his court and he has invited its inspectors to conduct the audit. Harabin also said that not only has he been politically harassed but also the Supreme Court has its budget slashed by 10 percent while the cut for other state bodies was five percent.
Maria Kolikova, Justice Ministry State Secretary, underlined at the Constitutional Court that the government’s audit was enacted when Harabin was justice minister and head of the Cabinet’s Legislative Council and he had no objections. Based on the new rule, a government audit was held at the Supreme Court in 2009 and Harabin signed without hesitation the results of the audit and proposed measures though he already was the Supreme Court’s president. According to her, he only started objecting when a new audit became imminent in 2010.
Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska filed two disciplinary actions against Harabin last November. The second one accused Harabin of violating his obligation to assign cases to Supreme Court’s senates at random.
Harabin perceives the decision as a political one. “It is a punishment for a legal opinion. My predecessor Milan Karabin was acquitted in a similar case. The disciplinary court has definitely violated the Constitution by not respecting a valid and executable decision of the Supreme Court,” he stated.
Wednesday’s decision of the Constitutional Court is an important signal that not even a high judiciary official can afford to do anything and that there is a line [that cannot be crossed], which is the law and public interest. Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska said this in reaction to the Constitutional Court’s ruling. In her opinion, it was confirmed that an audit of how public funds are managed in no way interferes with independence of the judiciary.
According to Zitnanska, the seriousness of the situation in the judiciary in Slovak is confirmed by the case of prevented audit at Supreme Court. As on a simple issue such as audit of now public funds are handled by the Finance Ministry, the two highest judicial institutions in the country, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court, have completely different opinions. On April 28, the Supreme Court confirmed the verdict of a regional court that the Finance Ministry cannot perform audit at the Supreme Court. On the contrary, on Wednesday the Constitutional Court penalized the president of the Supreme Court, Stefan Harabin, for refusing to allow the audit. In the Justice Minister’s opinion, whether after Wednesday’s verdict of the Constitutional Court the audit can be carried out depends on the Finance Ministry. However, she thinks that auditing how public funds are managed does not affect decision-making right and thus independence of the judicial power.
SITA