The President of the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic Ivan Fiačan appealed to the Members of Parliament to do their duty and elect the necessary number of candidates for the judges of the Constitutional Court. This was also the first time in history that the head of Slovakia's highest court body had addressed the parliamentary plenum. According to Fiačan, due to the missing number of judges, the court cannot work at its full capacity and unresolved files are thus piling up on its desks.
"Until this date; there are almost 1,400 files unresolved in the court. Almost 1,000 files do not have a Judge-Rapporteur assigned. Due to this, we must state a violation of the petitioners' right of access to the Constitutional Court and their right to have cases heard within a reasonable time period," stated Fiačan in his plea to the MPs.
Earlier this week, Parliament's Constitutional Law Committee approved all 16 candidates they heard on Monday for the post in the court. The plenary of the Parliament was expected to vote for new judges on Wednesday September 18th. Despite hearing out the plea of the President of the Constitutional Court, the MPs decided to postpone the elections one week later. The reason behind this postponing is allegedly the illness of Robert Fico, head of the senior governmental party SMER-SD.
Following the pressure from coalition parties Most-Híd and the Slovak National Party, the election will be public this time. "The election will be public and this attribute will be preserved by ballot identification," stated Parliament's speaker Andrej Danko. In the previous election rounds it was mostly opposition parties asking for public election, which was strongly opposed by Robert Fico and the SMER party.
This is already Parliament's fifth attempt to select Constitutional Court Judge candidates. Currently the Court is missing six judges. President Zuzana Čaputová said she would chose from the judges once she is provided with the complete number of candidates.
