Slovak judiciary one of the slowest in Europe

The European Commission published on Monday a comparative overview EU Justice Scoreboard 2016, which provides an overview of the effectiveness, quality and independence of judicial systems in the EU Member States. Based on the results, Slovakia's citizens perceive their judiciary as the least independent from politicians and entrepreneurs when compared with other EU countries. Slovakia also ranks among the nations that 'like' to sue, as in the number of lawsuits per 100 inhabitants; Slovakia is in the top six in Europe. The Slovak judiciary shows bad indicators when it comes to the time needed to deal with all types of legal disputes in courts of first instance. With around 210 hours, it ranks eighth worst of the 24 countries studied. A similar situation is with the criminal, civil and commercial disputes, where an average time is over 500 hours.