In a complaint filed with the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR), the president of Slovakia’s Supreme Court, Štefan Harabin, is demanding €150,000 as compensation for previous disciplinary action taken against him. Though the ECHR accepted Harabin’s complaint, no ruling has been made as yet, the TASR newswire reported.
The Supreme Court president was fined a 70 percent reduction in his salary 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 claims the judges who passed the ruling were biased and that a €50,000 salary cut for one year is inappropriate. He is demanding the lost salary lost plus damages amounting to €100,000.
The Constitutional Court halted another two disciplinary proceedings against Harabin saying that they will wait for the final verdict of the Strasbourg-based court, the Sme daily reported.
State Secretary of the Justice Ministry, Mária Kolíková, assumes that there was no reason to halt the proceedings.
“If ECHR wants to halt or suspend any proceeding held in the state, it has the right to release a preliminary ruling,” she said, as quoted by Sme, adding that it has not done so in this case.
Source: TASR, Sme
For more information about this story please see: NKÚ Harabin appeals to Strasbourg
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
