CIVIC and business lawsuits last more than 400 days, and Slovakia’s bankruptcy proceedings last longer than any others in the EU, the European Commission wrote in its comparative study on the quality of justice in EU member states.
“The comparative overview has noted that Slovakia is among the countries with a wide scale of evaluation mechanisms at its disposal,” Andrej Králik from the Representation of the EC in Slovakia said, as quoted by the SITA newswire.
When it comes to the length of court proceedings, however, Slovakia continues to lag behind, and the duration of the proceedings in the first-instance courts has grown even longer, Králik wrote. Civic and business proceedings in the first-instance courts last over 400 days. In 2010-2012 the number of solved cases dropped by 17 percent and the number of ongoing cases increased.
Slovakia also has the longest bankruptcy proceedings out of all EU countries - four years on average, SITA wrote. Additionally, only about 20 percent of judges in Slovakia are involved in lifelong learning, while in one third of EU countries that number exceeds 50 percent. The perceived independence of Slovakia’s judiciary is the lowest among the 28 EU countries.
The comparative overview is an informational tool that presents objective, reliable and comparable data about justice systems in the member states, according to the EC. The report is based on data from 2012.
