The outgoing Slovak government considers inadmissible a complaint by Supreme Court chairman Štefan Harabin by which he is suing Slovakia for damages of €150,000 at the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg. He objects to disciplinary proceedings brought against him for his repeated obstruction of Finance Ministry attempts to audit the Supreme Court. The proceedings were upheld by the Constitutional Court in a ruling on June 29, 2011, in which the court ordered that Harabin’s salary be reduced by 70 percent for one year.
In September 2011, Harabin filed a complaint which the European Court for Human Rights accepted for preferential handling, the SITA newswire wrote. After being invited by the court in January 2012 to express an opinion, the government expressed its stance on March 9, stating that it considers Harabin’s complaint as inadmissible, and that it represents an abuse of the right to file a complaint. "We think that the complainer is misleading the European court in key matters," stated Justice Ministry State Secretary Mária Kolíková. According to her, Harabin misled the court about the legal regulation that is valid for disciplinary proceedings against Supreme Court chairmen.
Source: SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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