Supreme Court judge Ivan Rumana and former chair of the governing party Sieť Radoslav Procházka will run for the post of an additional judge of the European Union General Court at a Judicial Council session scheduled for September 19. The nominations have been confirmed by the council’s office.
Procházka’s candidacy was approved by the Slovak Bar Association (SAK) at its August 15 session. He accepted the nomination as he has been actively working in European law since the 1990s and is convinced that he could be helpful in this new role.
Rumana’s bid was proposed by Judicial Council member and Supreme Court judge Alena Šišková. He was also nominated in the previous, failed vote on June 27. He however withdrew his candidacy due to family reasons, the TASR newswire reported.
Sieť falling to pieces Read more During the June 27 vote, former Constitutional Court president and advisor to President Andrej Kiska, Ján Mazák, received nine votes, though he needed to win the support of 10 Judicial Council members. The Judicial Council previously picked Mária Patakyová, but she was rejected by the EU General Court’s committee due to her lack of knowledge of French.
Apart from the additional judge of the EU General Court, members of the Judicial Council will elect candidates for ad hoc judges at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) at its September session. There are two candidates: Tomáš Ľalík (nominated by Šišková) and Ondrej Laciak (nominated by SAK), both from the Law Faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava, TASR wrote.
The Judicial Council at its June session failed to conclude the issue of candidates for ad hoc judges at the ECHR in Strasbourg. Although Ladislav Duditš won in a secret ballot with the support of 15 out of the 18 Judicial Council’s members, Slovakia has to submit three to five nominees. Therefore, Judicial Council chair Jana Bajánková had to announce another election to complete the list of candidates for ad hoc judges, as reported by TASR.
