BRATISLAVA, December 19, (WEBNOVINY) — The head of the Judicial Council and Supreme Court President, former Justice Minister Stefan Harabin has again attacked Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska (SDKU-DS) on Monday. Harabin and the minister who has initiated several disciplinary proceedings against him, while in the latest one he might temporarily lose his Supreme Court top job, are in a permanent clash. Harabin claims in his statement forwarded to SITA news agency that Zitnanska’s amendment to the law on judges makes the disciplinary senate for the judiciary dysfunctional as of January 1. “This is evidence in live broadcast that Minister Zitnanska does not know what she is doing. She pushed through the law and even failed to meet her own rules,” reads the statement.
The novelty from Zitnanska’s workroom that President Ivan Gasparovic refused to sign for alleged flaws, among others, requires from the Judicial Council to fulfill duties that cannot be observed as of the date when the legislation comes into effect. Based on the valid law, the Judicial Council calls on eligible entities to submit candidates to disciplinary senates and sets a 45-day deadline for them in compliance with the law. “We would have to have a time machine. They are probably already celebrating at the ministry and thus they did not have time to finish transitional provisions to this law,“ thinks Harabin.
As the Judicial Council continues in its standpoint, according to the law three databases should exist of candidates from which a disciplinary senate will be formed – nominees of the Justice Ministry, parliament and judicial councils. Harabin opines that just the database of the judicial senate members proposed by the justice minister fails to meet the basic criteria of forming a disciplinary senate in a random choice. “Because each database has to consist of minimally five members of whom two cannot be judges. However, currently the minister’s database contains only one candidate who is not a judge, pointed out Harabin. “Based on new rules it is impossible to form a legal disciplinary senate by random selection,” concludes the statement.
SITA