BRATISLAVA, July 15, (WEBNOVINY) – Even though the Finance Ministry’s audit at the Supreme Court finally started this Friday, it could not continue and auditors left the building after an hour.
It was already the fifth attempt of the ministry to audit whether the Supreme Court handles taxpayers‘ money effectively and thriftily. “The head of the Supreme Court administration informed the auditors of the existence of serious legal obstacles,” reported Finance Ministry’s spokesman Martin Jaros. The head of the court’s administration referred to rulings of the Regional Court and the Supreme Court on a 30,000 euro fine that the Finance Ministry imposed on the Supreme Court for not allowing its audit. Both courts argue that the Supreme Court is not a public administration authority but a supreme judicial authority and should thus not be audited by a government body, but by the Supreme Audit Office. This Friday, the only output of the audit was a report stating that the audit started, but is not continuing.
The auditors however pointed out that in the meantime the Constitutional Court issued the verdict regarding disciplinary proceedings against Supreme Court Chairman Stefan Harabin initiated by Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska. The Constitutional Court holds the opinion that the Supreme Court should have enabled the audit and decided that Harabin has violated his duties by not allowing the control and punished him by reducing his salary by 70 percent for one year. According to Jaros, the Supreme Court representative informed the ministry that the Supreme Court has not been informed of such ruling. The Finance Ministry will consider further steps, said Jaros adding that the ministry does not plan abandoning the plan to audit the Supreme Court.
SITA