Prime Minister Robert Fico should dismiss Justice Minister Tomáš Borec, said Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) MP and former justice minister Lucia Žitňanska at a briefing in parliament on Monday, November 5.
Žitňanská stated that Borec should be dismissed because the government has failed to defend the interests of the state at the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg, backing instead the interests of a private individual - Supreme Court Chairman Štefan Harabin.
"The result of this may be that we'll have to chip in for Harabin's bonus worth hundreds of thousands of euros," she said, as quoted by the TASR newswire. The SDKÚ MP recalled that Harabin is asking for 70 percent of his salary to be paid back to him plus compensation. He took Slovakia to court after he was deprived of this part of his pay for preventing the Finance Ministry from carrying out an audit at the Supreme Court, which was assessed as disciplinary misconduct by the Slovak Constitutional Court.
According to Žitňanská, although the government should defend the interests of Slovakia and the ruling of the Slovak Constitutional Court, it sent a statement to Strasbourg that she views as beneficial to Harabin's side.
"And I view it as absurd that the government is asking the court in Strasbourg to order compensation for non-material harm done to Harabin based on the [possibly] proven violation of his rights," added Žitňanská. Calling the situation unprecedented, she listed two possibilities that may have caused it. First, the government is casting doubt on the ruling made by the Constitutional Court against Harabin, or, second, the government does not know what the Slovak representative at the court is doing. Žitňanská said that she does not want to believe that the latter option is the case.
Justice Minister Tomáš Borec and Marica Pirošíková who represents Slovakia at the ECHR, both claim, as quoted by the Sme daily, that the government is not helping Harabin, and that the statement is standard, and not of significant importance.
(Source: TASR, Sme)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
