The Judicial Council considers the 'Five Sentences' initiative, in which 105 judges expressed their discontent with the state of the judiciary in Slovakia, to be an attempt to drag the judiciary into politics, council member and spokesman Juraj Sopoliga said on October 6.
“Its [the petition’s] signatories represent 4.59 percent of Slovakia's judges. The submitted appeal is not motivated by efforts to improve the state of the judiciary, but rather expresses the failed personal ambitions of some of its signatories [to resume their posts],” Sopoliga said.
Speaking after a session of the Judicial Council, he added that all council members had approved his statement. The 105 judges presented an open letter called 'Five Sentences' last week, in which they expressed their feelings about a lack of freedom and worries about the attempts of the judicial governing authorities to penalise judges for critical public statements concerning the situation in the Slovak judiciary. The judges spoke of ‘an atmosphere of fear’ in the judiciary. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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