Judicial reform may not be lost after Thursday’s parliamentary vote. Three of the four key laws have not passed, but the fact that at least one of them has won the support of government deputies gives the coalition a chance to finally push through the reform.
The law, which passed the first reading, concerns the seats of district courts and judicial districts. Voices We Are Family and For the People were missing in the Act on Regional Courts and the two laws by which the Minister of Justice Mária Kolíková (for SaS) wanted to enforce the establishment of municipal courts in Bratislava and Košice.
In the next process, a technically relatively simple solution is offered – amendments to the law that have been pushed through will suffice, and a second and third reading awaits the next meeting of the National Council, after which the vote will decide whether the proposal passes parliament.
Therefore, it will not be difficult to technically solve the problem. However, finding an agreement on the wording of the amendments will be difficult. We are a family, and the Minister of Justice Mária Kolíková (for SaS) says the day after Thursday’s vote that they want to continue negotiations and look for a solution.
“The minister does not have to step down, but negotiate. He must seek a compromise, “says Kolík’s leader We are the Boris Kollár family. It was his movement and four MPs for the People who did not support the minister’s reform.
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We are a family and Under the People did not support Pin’s reform. Neither the regional nor the city courts have passed
Amendments will help
“Procedurally, I do not see a problem,” Kolíková responds to the idea that the city courts will succeed in enforcing through the parliamentary proposal to the law on district courts.
If this law is not approved, there is a risk that parliament will not be able to return to judicial reform for half a year. This is a fixed deadline when they can first negotiate a law that has not passed the first reading.
At the same time, they should not approve “stickers” in the National Council, ie amendments that are not substantively related to the law of which they are to become a part. However, such a reservation should not be made in the case of amendments to municipal and regional courts.
The municipal courts in Košice and Bratislava are to be established by merging the current district courts in these cities. The content of the amendment will therefore be related to the Act on District Courts.
What is the biggest problem with the coalition?
- Municipal Court in Bratislava: it should be created by merging the five Bratislava district courts; For the people we are and the family are against, questioning their origin.
- Municipal Court in Košice: it should be created by merging the three Košice district courts; For the people we are and the family are against, questioning their origin.
- Regional courts: instead of eight, there should be only three, because there will be three major judicial districts.
- The seat of the West Slovak appellate district should be the court in Trnava, the current regional courts in Bratislava and Nitra should be his workplaces; We family disagrees not to be based in Bratislava.
- The Central Slovak Appellate District should be located in Žilina, but the workplace in Banská Bystrica will be preserved; He has reservations about the demise of the court in Banská Bystrica.
- For eastern Slovakia, it will be the seat of the Court of Appeal Prešov, which will include the Košice Regional Court; We family has a problem with its cancellation.
The coalition will probably not enforce the new seats of the regional courts through this law. Their new headquarters and districts can now be enforced through the Administrative Courts Act, which has already gone through a comment procedure, but has still not been decided by the government.
And since the administrative colleges currently operate within the regional courts, the coalition would be able to defend why the new seats of the regional courts are addressed through the Act on Administrative Courts.
However, such a solution puts the coalition under time, as the reform of the judiciary is linked to a milestone for requesting the first payment from the recovery and resilience plan. Slovakia wants to apply for money in April and until then the parliament must approve the reform.
Therefore, Kolíková would have to enforce the law on administrative courts in the government as soon as possible, so that the deputies will be able to discuss it in March. And they would have to do it in a short process.
At the same time, the minister needs to find an agreement with coalition partners. Kolíková suggests that instead of eight judicial districts, there should be only three – West Slovak, Central Slovak and East Slovak. The headquarters of these districts should be in Trnava, Žilina (in Banská Bystrica the court would be partially preserved) and in Prešov.
We family has a problem with this solution, it hinders them that the seat of the court of appeal will no longer be Bratislava and Košice.
However, city courts are still at risk
Negotiations We are a family, For the people and the ministers will be very demanding, especially in connection with the establishment of city courts. So far, it seems more like an agreement is unrealistic. At least about the city court in Bratislava.
Just look at the reservations that Juraj Šeliga (For the People) wrote to the city courts.
The Sheliga is worried that joining almost 140 judges under one roof and with one leadership will bring the desired effect. “If the main argument is to break corruption ties, then such a step is to his detriment,” he wrote on Facebook, adding that in Slovakia we have very bad experience with the management of large teams of judges.
He is concerned about the excessive concentration of power in the hands of one person over the judges. He points to the past, when Štefan Harabin had two years to control the court. He suggests that those who agree with the minister’s reform take the Harabin test.
Currently, the largest court is the Regional Court in Bratislava, where there are almost eighty active judges. Until recently, the Supreme Court had about the same number of judges, but some judges passed to the Supreme Administrative Court last year.
He also does not consider it an argument in favor of the municipal courts that this will allow all judges in the court to specialize in individual agendas, as according to him the Bratislava courts already work in this way. According to Šelig, the problem of the Bratislava district courts is the management of judges and electronization. “Until this is the case, it will only be a matter of relocating staff, but not streamlining work.”
He also questions that much of the money from the recovery plan will go to the construction of new municipal courts in Košice and Bratislava.
However, Kolíková reminds that a quarter of all litigation in Slovakia is resolved in Bratislava and Košice. If these courts are not reformed, it will be a problem.
“It is clearly a key part of the reform,” says Kolíková about the city courts. Their establishment is intended to help judges, especially in the District Court of Bratislava I, to be able to get rid of old files. “We will enable them, with the help of other judges within Bratislava, to get the participant to their decision sooner,” the minister convinced the deputies in the National Council on Thursday.
Her proposal is to use “the most effective potential we have in Bratislava and Košice”.
Heger: We cannot waste a strong mandate
“I am not giving up in pushing for judicial reform and we will be looking for crisis solutions,” said Prime Minister Eduard Heger (OĽANO), who is at the EU-Africa summit in Brussels. “To fight corruption and build the rule of law, we have been given a strong constitutional mandate by the people that we cannot waste.” he added in the status.
The Prime Minister recalled that the non-approval of three laws jeopardizes the fulfillment of the milestones in the recovery and resilience plan for the first payment request for about half a billion euros.
Heger spoke with Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, about the situation created by Thursday’s vote on judicial reform. “The National Implementation and Coordination Authority (NIKA) is already analyzing the consequences of unapproved judicial map reform laws and will discuss this with representatives of the European Commission,” the prime minister wrote.
“Delaying or failing to meet one milestone may jeopardize or delay the entire payment,” said Heger, adding that the reform of the judicial map was followed by investments in the refurbishment of court buildings and the construction of new courts, the digitization of courts and the equipment of judges for more than € 255 million.
In addition to investments in buildings, the reform of the judiciary includes investments aimed at digitization, strengthening of analytical capacities and material IT equipment for 6,000 judicial staff in a total amount of almost 43 million euros.
The European Commission has so far repeatedly stated that we can only ask for money from the recovery plan once the milestones have been satisfactorily met.
Which is actually in the milestones
Therefore, they also started a lively discussion in the coalition about what we committed to in the milestones. We are a family and they rely on the fact that if there are no separate courts in Bratislava and Košice in the documents we sent to Brussels, there should be no problem with the first payment.
The Council of the European Union’s implementing decision states: “The court system will consist of a new network of first instance administrative and ordinary courts (including municipal courts), courts of appeal and the Supreme Administrative Court.” courts, regional courts and, finally, administrative courts.
“Only with the full fulfillment of the milestone within the approval of the five laws of the court map can we expect the approval of the European Commission and the payment of the first payment in full,” warns Lívia Vašáková from the recovery plan section at the government office. Skillna is 458.3 million euros.