BRATISLAVA, September 7, (WEBNOVINY) — The Justice Ministry believes that the current system of evaluation of judges should be improved. In the first reading on Wednesday, the Slovak Parliament passed a draft revision to the law on judges and lay-judges, enacting compulsory evaluation of judges every five years, which has been abolished in the currently valid law. If deficiencies are detected in the work of a judge, he/she would be assessed again after a year. If it is proven that a judge has lost professional capacity for being a judge, he/she can be removed from office.
“If we really want to see an improvement in the judiciary, there must be some evaluation mechanism for the assessment of the work of judges. I have therefore submitted a proposal that will enable detection of quality as well as insufficient quality of performance of judges. I suggest complex assessment of judges’ work and the possibility of removal of a judge from office should the negative results of an assessment be repeated,“ Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska explains the purpose of the draft.
With regard to disciplinary proceedings, authors of the revision suggest implementation of a random selection of the senate for every disciplinary action, which would “significantly curb the risk of abuse of disciplinary proceedings, which is a fundamental assumption for meeting the requirement for the disciplinary proceedings to be an effective instrument of purification of the judge’s occupation in legitimate cases.” The list of disciplinary senates as well as databases of chairmen and members of disciplinary senates elected by the Judiciary Council will be published on-line to ensure public control of disciplinary senates.
The revision to the law on judges and lay-judges is part of the first package of judicial changes that revises the process of creation of the Judicial Council and separates the office of the Supreme Court Chairman and Judicial Council Chairman. Parliament okayed the first part of the package in the first reading on September 6.
SITA