Illustrative stock photo (source: TASR)
The political programmes of these two parties have the most balanced responses to the judiciary, including liabilities for judges and the independence of the judiciary, said ZOJ chairwoman Katarína Javorčíková, as reported by the TASR newswire.
Though another opposition party, the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) does not have a programme as well-elaborated as Sieť and Most-Híd, its programme is very similar, with respect to values and basic intentions for change.
All the aforementioned parties have proposed increasing the credibility of the judiciary via increasing judges' liability for punitive action and also improving the transparency of selection and disciplinary proceedings.
The parties have also proposed improving legislation concerning the justice system, making legal proceedings easier, strengthening related justice administration, increasing the number of higher judicial officers (to one such officer per judge), introducing objective indicators for assessing judges, precisely delineating judges’ decision-making powers and making court accounting easier, as reported by TASR.
Most-Híd has proposed setting up evaluating senates composed of professional judges, which would only assess judges’ activities.
All three parties agree that judges that are subordinate to the Interior Ministry should not be members of the Judicial Council. Furthermore, they also see some issues in the nomination of judges to the Judicial Council by the government, parliament and president.
