Parliament fails to elect Judicial Council member

Parliament failed to elect a new member of the Judicial Council at a secret vote held on Tuesday. The sole candidate Allan Bohm, nominated by opposition MP Ondrej Dostal garnered only 30 out of 133 votes. Justice Ministry State Secretary Monika Jankovská (a Smer-SD nominee) originally planned to run for the post as well, but she announced last week that she was withdrawing her bid. In recent weeks, Justice Minister Lucia Žitňanská rejected Jankovska's bid and even intimated the possibility of her own potential resignation were the state secretary to be elected to the Judicial Council. Žitňanská insisted that neither politicians nor judges should sit on the Judicial Council, with Jankovská being a judge by profession with a suspended mandate, as she ran in the parliamentary election on Smer-SD's slate. Žitňanská pointed out that this is even enshrined in the Government Manifesto, with Culture Minister Marek Maďarič (Smer-SD) supporting her stance.