Justice Minister Tomáš Borec proposes to solve the problem of mass submission of complaints by non-banking financial companies via an amendment to the execution process order and the law on arbitration proceedings. The minister has already appointed committees that will prepare the changes, the SITA newswire reported on March 12.
Borec says that arbitration proceedings in consumer cases will be separated from commercial cases and will have stricter rules.
“There will be arbitrators who will have to be more qualified, [and] will be registered at the Justice Ministry,” Borec said, as quoted by SITA.
On the other hand, the new rules will reduce the time taken to resolve commercial disputes, so that businesspeople get verdicts earlier, the minister added.
Borec claimed that various companies offering consumer loans or goods misuse the existing arbitration proceedings. The verdicts issued by arbitrators are reassessed by general courts during the execution proceeding which “burdens the courts, lengthens the proceeding and burdens citizens”, the minister added.
The Sme daily reported on March 11 that the non-banking company Pohotovosť had filed about 10,000 complaints with the Constitutional Court, and a similar number of supplements to them. The company complains that it was denied the right to an unbiased judge in lawsuits against the state. The firm is also demanding reimbursement from the Justice Ministry as judges allegedly proceeded incorrectly in execution proceedings against their debtors and protracted cases.
Source: SITA, Sme
To read more about this story please see: Slovakia has to deal with lawsuits
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
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