BRATISLAVA, November 28, (WEBNOVINY) — Supreme Court President and ex-Justice Minister Stefan Harabin will face further disciplinary proceeding after Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska (SDKU) has filed an already the fourth disciplinary motion against him for several transgressions and violations of the law. Zitnanska wants Harabin to lose the right to wear the judge’s gown for life and proposes as well that the Constitutional Court decides on his temporary suspension from the Supreme Court top position. She proposes as well that the Constitutional Court merges the disciplinary proceedings against Harabin that are already underway and has asked the court to set a date for a hearing, since disciplinary proceedings against Harabin have been excessively protracted. Zitnanska has also filed a criminal motion on a suspicion that a crime may have been committed of interference in court’s independence.
The latest proposal for opening disciplinary proceedings against Harabin contains six points; four cases involve grave disciplinary flaws incompatible with the function of a judge. The Supreme Court president is supposed to have breached the law when he initiated several changes in the composition of the Supreme Court panels. Already in the past, based on motions Zitnanska filed, the Constitutional Court issued two rulings stating a violation of the law in two cases, with one concerning the Tipos case. The minister also says that the Supreme Court president used to charge judges to substitute him during his absence, which the law does not allow. Moreover, the minister believes that Harabin has violated the principle of random assigning of court cases in appellate reviews when they were assigned only to one senate, which is in absolute odds with the random assignment principle.
„Changes to legal rules are not enough to boost the trustworthiness of the judicial system when people who hold top judicial posts do not abide by the law and repeatedly breach their legal duties. Nobody can stand above the law, neither a judge nor a court president,” said Zitnanska.
Justice Minister Zitnanska submitted her previous proposal to start disciplinary proceedings against Supreme Court president Harabin in early August, demanding the toughest punishment for him- suspension from a judge post for life. The minister believes that Harabin failed when he did not appeal against the court verdict upholding discrimination lawsuits that eleven Supreme Court judges discontent with lower salaries than those of their colleagues from the former Special Court filed in December. “I am convinced that he did not sufficiently and consistently protect the interests of the Slovak Republic in the case of eleven judges of the Supreme Court versus the Supreme Court, which culminated by his decision to not file an appeal against the verdict of the Bratislava I District court from November 10, according to which the Slovak Republic has to pay non-pecuniary damage of a million euros and compensation of court costs at 45,726 euros to the plaintiffs.
Harabin was already once found guilty of committing a serious disciplinary transgression based on the first motion of Zitnanska from November 2010. At that time, the Constitutional Court decided to punish Harabin with 70-percent reduction of his salary for a year for his failure to allow an audit of the Supreme Court by the Finance Ministry. Later that month, the minister also lodged a second motion against Harabin because she was convinced that he seriously violated the duty of a judicial official, which seriously compromises the trustworthiness of the judiciary in connection with changes in the work schedule at the Supreme Court, disrespecting the principle of random assignment of cases to individual judges.
SITA