The Government plans the separation of two positions now held by Štefan Harabin, which is the President of the Supreme Court and Chairman of the Judicial Council, as well as mandatory security clearance for all judges and some other proposals that the Justice Ministry hopes will improve credibility of the judiciary.
“We have a great ambition to separate in the judiciary, courageous judges from judges who do not belong there,” Prime Minister Fico said at a news conference on Thursday after meeting with the Justice Minister Tomáš Borec. He said that they are encountering various suspicions about judicial links to the business sector, as well as, further afield. “It appears that sometimes there are privileged links of judges to lawyers and parties in a dispute,” Fico added. Prime Minister Fico said he has a promise from the National Security Office that within a year it would be able to prepare documents for security screening nearly all 1,400 judges.
