Slovak judges object to the new 'court map' reform, as they believe it would usher in many long-term negative consequences that might slow down court proceedings and fetter people's access to justice, reads an open letter addressed to the Justice Ministry.
Even before publishing of the letter, Justice Minister Mária Kolíková extended the commenting process of the reform by one month, until the end of February. One of the initiators of the letter Dana Jelínková Dudzíková said that it is not enough, stating that the reform should be withdrawn and a thorough professional discussion should start over from the very beginning
The core of the reform is a reorganization of the courts - many of them will disappear or remain detached workplaces. Half of the courts should be closed down, however, the number of judges will not change, only some of them will have to commute to other courts.
The critics called the reform draft a disproportionate interference of the executive power in the judiciary. Moreover, they say it violates the obligations of the Slovak Republic as a member state of the European Union in terms of the independence of the judiciary and access to justice. Moreover, according to the letter, it does not solve fundamental problems of the current judicial system - overloading of some courts, length of court proceedings, enforceability of the law, insufficient technical and personnel resources, etc.
The Minister argues that she wants to specialize judges and increase the quality of their decisions. The enlargement of judicial districts, in turn, is to bring about the severance of corrupt ties in the judiciary. Kolíková said, that the reform is based on objective data and not on political decisions stating that is should bring similar functioning of the judiciary as before the 1997 reform."We are not coming up with an experiment, but we are removing an experiment that did not work," said Kolíková.
As part of the letter, the judges criticize Chair of the Judicial Council Ján Mazák. The judges write that Mazák uses his post to what are purely his personal opinions as the opinion of the entire Judicial Council. This is according to them unacceptable, especially in relation to communication with the European institutions. At the same time, the letter points out that Mazák's statements border on disproportionate attacks on the judiciary, thus, contributing to reducing citizens' trust in the judiciary and manipulating the public opinion.
In his defence Mazák stated, that the trust in judges was the lowest possible when he took up the post six months ago. For Open Justice initiative is against criticizing Mazák in this manner. "We consider it inappropriate and disproportionate to mix up the effort to resolve the issue of reorganization of the court system with personal reservations," responded the initiative pointing to a large number of signatories who refused to support the part of the letter on Mazák.
The Denník N daily wrote that the letter is the largest initiative of this kind in the history of Slovak judiciary. So far, it has been signed by 320 judges. However, 112 of these judges did not support the part concerning Mazák.
