A plenum of Slovakia’s Constitutional Court seated in Košice agreed in a closed session on April 11 to accept a motion filed by former Justice Minister Lucia Žitňanská for disciplinary ction against Štefan Harabin, the head of Slovakia’s Supreme Court, the court’s spokeswoman, Anna Pancúrová, told the SITA newswire.
However, she added that the Constitutional Court did not accept the former minister's demand to temporarily suspend of Harabin as a judge or Žitňanská’s other proposal to link this particular motion with her other disciplinary motions. Žitňanská filed four disciplinary motions against Harabin with the Constitutional Court.
The Constitutional Court already upheld disciplinary action against Harabin for refusing to allow an audit of the Supreme Court by the Finance Ministry and it penalised him by reducing his salary by seventy percent for one year. Harabin has appealed that action to the European Court of Human Rights.
The Constitutional Court has not yet decided on proposals for disciplinary action involving allegations of changes in the work schedule of judges and violating the requirement of random assignment of cases to judges.
The Constitutional Court on April 11 also ruled on alleged bias by certain judges. Bias by Constitutional Court judges Peter Brňák, Ľubomír Dobrík, Milan Ľalík were raised by Žitňanská and the same objection of bias was raised against Constitutional Court judges Juraj Horváth, Ľudmila Gajdošíková, Ladislav Orosz, Ján Luby and Sergei Kohut by Harabin. The court ruled that judges Dobrík, Horváth, and Ľalík will be excluded from case.
Source: SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
