BRATISLAVA, January 23, (WEBNOVINY) — A two-day conference called Judicial Reform — Past and Future, held in Bratislava on Friday and Saturday, ended by issuing a joint statement. Participating in the event were 33 judges and legal experts from nine countries. In the joint statement, they outline ways to improve the functioning of the judiciary and increase public confidence in the courts. They declare their openness to the public and the future debate on resolving problems of the judiciary. The statement expresses support to mutual exchange of experience and information about problems in the functioning of the judiciary of the Visegrad Group (V4) countries and other European countries in order to find effective solutions, and emphasizes the need for long-term strategies for building the judiciary of the V4 countries immune to arbitrary political changes and reminds representative of all branches of power in a state to use checks and balances in the division of powers in a way to increase the independence of the judiciary and its credibility.
The aim of the conference was to identify the problems in the judiciary in the V4 countries and especially to seek solutions towards an open and independent judiciary. Participants in the discussion included Vice President of the International Association of Judges Gerhard Reissner, honorary president of the International Association of Judges Gunter Woratsch, president of the renowned Dutch Organization Judges for Judges Gerritjan Van Oven and Italian judge and expert Giuseppe Di Federico, who has participated in the work on several judicial reforms in Europe and South America. The series of discussions over two days focused primarily on internal and external interference in the administration of justice, professional and ethical standards for the work of a judge, the European standard of independent status of judges, public control over the judicial and its credibility. The conference was prepared by the Open Society Foundation and the Slovak independent initiative For Open Judiciary.
Ondrej Starinsky of the Open Society Foundation provided the information about the conference to SITA news agency.
SITA
