The president of Slovakia’s Supreme Court, Štefan Harabin, has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg against the disciplinary action taken against him, the TASR newswire reported.
“I’m only demanding justice in relation to political bullying of which even the initiators of the [communist-era] political trials in the 1950s would be ashamed,” Harabin said, as quoted by TASR. Harabin has interpreted his penalty as punishment for what he called his legal opinion, and said that the penalty infringes his freedom of speech and represents scorn for a law-based state.
The Supreme Court president had his pay cut by 70 percent for a period of one year as of August 30, 2011, by the Constitutional Court for preventing Finance Ministry inspectors from carrying out a financial audit at the Supreme Court.
Harabin said that his case was judged by people who had already said that they were biased against him in other cases. He also asserted that in the past the ECHR had accepted his arguments and ruled that his rights to freedom of speech were violated, the SITA newswire reported.
“Some politicians who have not read the verdict of the ECHR are deliberately remaining silent and are lying,” Harabin said, as quoted by SITA.
Source: TASR, SITA
For more information on this story please see: Court penalises Harabin.
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
