The plenum of the Constitutional Court on May 22 officially assigned the complaint by general- prosecutor-elect Jozef Čentéš regarding President Ivan Gašparovič's refusal to appoint him to his post to the original court senate composed of justices Milan Ľalík, Peter Brňák and Marianna Mochnáčová, the TASR newswire reported, citing Constitutional Court spokesperson Anna Pančurová.
Ľalík and Brňák were earlier this year excluded from ruling on the case by another Constitutional Court senate after Čentéš submitted a complaint alleging that they might have been biased. The decision on Thursday was made possible by an amendment to the Act on Organisation of the Constitutional Court that was recently approved by ruling Smer party MPs in parliament, via a fast-track proceeding. The bill was ostensibly aimed at resolving a stalemate at the court caused by a series of claims of bias submitted by Čentéš and Gašparovič against all but one of the court’s 13 judges.
The plenum of the Constitutional Court also assigned a complaint lodged by a group of opposition MPs against the law change to a judge-rapporteur, the SITA newswire wrote. The lawmakers are demanding that the Constitutional Court examine the constitutionality of the amendment to the Act on the Organisation of the Constitutional Court. They also demand that the court defers the validity of the amendment until it decides on the merit of the case itself, SITA reported, citing court spokeswoman Anna Pančurová.
Sources: TASR, SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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