Constitutional Court judges (source: TASR)
The controversy surrounding the election of nine Constitutional Court judges has undoubtedly been the most strikingly visible manifestation of the existence of the Constitutional Court.
It even overshadowed the January ruling, by which the Constitutional Court scrapped the security clearances required for its judges. This decision was groundbreaking since the Constitutional Court has never abolished a constitutional law before and the timing is dubious as it happened just before a large turnover of judges at the Court.
Four of the Constitutional Court judges, Lajos Mészáros, Marianna Mochnáčová, Ladislav Orosz and Rudolf Tkáčik voted against the abolition of security clearance. However, none of them is a Constitutional Court judge any more. Their terms of office ended on February 16.
The security clearance of judges is born
Smer, which was the only party in power in 2014, pushed through the constitutional law on the security clearance of judges with the support of the Christian Democrats (KDH). They managed to accumulate 102 votes in parliament, which was enough to comfortably overrun the constitutional majority of 90 votes.
