THE EUROPEAN Court for Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg has turned down a complaint made by four judges sitting on Slovakia’s Supreme Court against the country’s Constitutional Court related to the 2008 election of Štefan Harabin as the president of the Supreme Court, the Sme daily reported.
Miroslav Gavalec, Zuzana Ďurišová, Elena Berthódyová and Peter Paluda complained to the ECHR about the lack of judicial action by Slovakia’s Constitutional Court in taking up their motion against the conduct of the election in June 2009 that led to the appointment of Štefan Harabin to the post of Supreme Court president.
Slovakia’s Constitutional Court received their complaint in August 2009. At that time the judges asked the court to issue a preliminary injunction to ban Harabin from handling the duties of president until the court had decided on the substance of their motion.
The four judges argued that Harabin harmed them by his actions as Supreme Court president. Harabin had filed disciplinary motions against Gavalec and Paluda and the two other judges had had their cases re-assigned.
