THREE candidates will compete for the post of Supreme Court president, which was left vacant after Štefan Harabin’s term expired on June 22. The election is due to take place on September 16.
Justice Minister Tomáš Borec announced a day before the deadline for submitting candidates was up, on August 22, that he would not offer his own candidate for the post.
“I’m convinced that the Judicial Council will be able to elect a good chairperson from the candidates nominated to this date,” stated the minister, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
Originally, the minister declared his intention to nominate a candidate, according to the SITA newswire.
The Judicial Council, whose members select the head of the Supreme Court, had received applications from three candidates - former Supreme Court vice-chair Daniela Švecová and sitting Supreme Court judges Daniel Hudák and Ivan Rumana.
Švecová was nominated by the Judicial Council of the Trnava Regional Court, while Hudák is the nominee of the Supreme Court judges. Rumana was the last to join the race, deciding not to ask for an official endorsement from other judges or institutions, TASR wrote.
In the previous attempt to choose the Supreme Court head, held in Sobrance (Prešov Region) on May 19, none of the candidates (then head of the court, Harabin; the head of the Supreme Court civil law collegium, Jana Bajánková; and the chair of the Supreme Court administrative law collegium, Zuzana Ďurišová) garnered enough votes to win. A second voting round on the same day, which featured only Harabin and Bajánková, ended with the same result.
The candidates who ran in the first vote in May are not eligible to run in the second attempt. If the second vote also fails to produce a winner, however, Harabin, Bajánková and Ďurišová would be able to run in a third vote.
Since the term of Harabin expired, the court has been led by its vice chair, Jarmila Urbancová.
Source: TASR, SITA
Compiled by Michaela Terenzani from press reports.
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information
presented in its Flash News postings.
