Accountability of judges

 

Accountability of judges

VIA IURIS advocates balancing judicial independence by their accountability. Within our topics – judicial ethics, quality of court decisions and of disciplinary proceedings we organize conferences, engage in analytical and legislative activities.

• System of judges’ accountability (code of ethics, ethical commission, education)

• Quality of judicial decisions
• Access to court decisions

Courts fundamentally affect the quality of our life by their decisions and actions. However, statistics show that 27% Slovaks consider judiciary to be the most corrupted segment of the public life and up to 65% of us do not trust the courts. Such a level of mistrust puts Slovakia on the tail of the Europe. Judiciary struggles with separation, politicization and corruption. Until now the attention has been mainly focused on the improvement of institutions within judiciary and relations between them. It clear however that this approach is not sufficient to for well functioning judiciary in Slovakia. Therefore we consider it important to pay attention to the personality of a judge.

Currently the main topic of VIA IURIS in the area of judiciary is the system of judges’ accountability. Judicial power, like the other two powers of state, comes from the citizens. However, judges, who exercise this power, are not held accountable in regular elections. Since the implementation of power is without an effective feedback from its originator, a greater emphasis should be placed on the accountability. Definition of values, reflected either in obligations determined by law or in ethical standards, contributes to an accountable exercise of judicial power.

Judicial Code of ethics and related system of ethical education are important preventive tools strengthening ethics of judicial conduct. The aim of the ethical code is to contribute to the value orientation of judges and therefore it should help to maintain high ethical standards in the exercise of their profession. To tackle relevant issues VIA IURIS will use its analytical, facilitation and legislative experience to contribute to the debate on the current situation of judiciary, the adoption of a new ethical code and necessary legislative changes in disciplinary liability.

However, VIA IURIS has already been involved in the issue of judiciary for several years. In the past our team provided a complex set of trainings for judges and judicial trainees. Besides the specialized legal education in selected human rights topics, each training contained section on personal growth of judge, development of abilities and skills in this area. Set of trainings for judges was delivered in cooperation with leading experts from the field of psychology, Judicial Academy of the Slovak Republic and partner organizations from Austria, Slovenia and Hungary.

Since 1999 we have been organizing a cycle of conferences Access to justice: Barriers and solutions. Their aim is to identify barriers (or discuss previously identified barriers) in the access to justice and find systematic solutions to overcome them. Participants of the conferences are lawyers from various legal professions: judges of general courts, constitutional court and European judicial institutions; attorneys; members of parliament; university professors; public officials as well as representatives of NGO sector from Slovakia and abroad.

One of the fundamental barriers we have discovered and contributed to overcoming was access to judicial/court decisions. Many courts refused to provide their decisions to public, some courts provided only the verdict without reasoning and deliberations. Other courts made their decisions public on internet, however the vast majority of decisions was not available. We have prepared legal analysis of the situation (in Slovak) and in June 2010 proposed legislative changes (in Slovak). Our proposal has been incorporated into the set of legislative amendments prepared by the government and approved in December 2010 by the parliament. New legislation requires courts to provide all their decisions upon request and publish their decisions on the internet.

Access to court decisions is not enough. If citizens can not understand from the court decisions why their claim was unsuccessful, their trust in courts is seriously undermined and their right to a fair trial is violated. Courts can be respected only if their decisions are based on the convincing and rational arguments. Therefore we focus our attention also on the quality of judicial/court decisions, and in April 2011 we prepared an analysis of the libel cases (in Slovak with English summary). We analyzed cases of public officials suing media and compared the approach of courts in Slovakia, the USA and the European Court of Human Rights. Currently we are working on analysis of the quality of court decisions' reasoning. Our analyses include also legislative recommendations.

Accountability of public officials

 

Accountability of public officials

• System of accountability of public officials for unlawful exercise of their powers
• Transparent and effective disposal of public poverty

In their daily lives citizens are confronted with situations when elected representatives or government officials exercise their powers unlawfully. Some of those situations are related to management and disposal of public property. These actions have often widespread economical effects. However, holding a specific person – the public official who caused the situation – liable for its outcomes, is rare in Slovakia. Therefore it is important that the legal system establishes rules for accountability of public officials as well as rules for disposal of public property.

In 2009 and 2010 VIA IURIS pushed forward two ground-breaking amendments clarifying rules for disposal of municipal property (amendment I., amendment II. available in Slovak). The law on municipal property and law on property of higher territorial units now contain requirements that transfer and lease of property is done transparently and in a public competition. Moreover the amendment gave residents of concerned municipality right to challenge unlawful actions of their municipalities at court.

In 2010 the first electronic sale of the property, in accordance with the above legislative amendment, has been carried out. The outcome of this sale has been by 200 000 euro higher price compared to the price estimated by an expert opinion. This is the amount saved from this transaction for the municipal budget.

In July 2011 we finalized a work on a complex legal analysis concerning accountability of public officials (available only in Slovak). Our focus is to review legal framework, application of relevant laws and evaluate efficiency of the system. In the analysis we use comparative approach, looking at systems of accountability in Germany, Austria and USA. Our preliminary observation is that legal mechanisms for accountability of public officials are inadequate in the Slovak legal system: disciplinary accountability, which plays a leading role abroad, has been abolished; criminal liability is applied in a very limited way; and holding individual public official accountable by seeking compensation for damages caused by his/her conduct are, according to our findings, not applied.

 Based on its results we will prepare and present our legislative theses aiming to establish all three pillars of accountability of public officials: disciplinary, criminal and civil liability.

Responsible citizens

 

Responsible citizens

Since 1993 VIA IURIS advocates wider access to information and public participation of citizens. We do so by litigation in specific cases and by legislative proposals.

• Access to informationa and transparency of decision-making of public authorities
• Broad public participation in decision-making and access to courts
• Assistance to those who are intimidated for defending the public interest

VIA IURIS has been supporting the engagement of citizens in public interest decision-making for a long time. We believe that progressive society requires citizens to engage actively in the administration of public affairs and express their opinion more regularly than during elections. First of all, public administration in our country is not ready to function effectively without a public control. Moreover it helps to move society forward when citizens present their opinions concerning administration of public affairs. To this effect however, citizens need tools to promote their opinions.

The effective tools, corresponding also with the scope of this topic, are: citizens must have access to decisions of public authorities; they must have a possibility to effectively influence decision-making and a possibility to challenge unlawful decision at the court. In addition citizens can't be punished for expressing their opinions and for participating in decision-making.

In this topic VIA IURIS monitors legislation (report in English), its application and promotes positive changes. In 2010 the categories of public, which can participate in decision-making with the largest impact on the health and environment (legislative proposal and opinion are available in Slovak). From May 2010 participants in mentioned proceedings can also be natural and legal persons and citizens' initiatives, next to environmental organizations. This success can be attributed also to our long-lasting efforts.

Recently we have prepared an amendment to Construction Code (in Slovak), which strengthens the access of public to information. We have elaborated legislative theses (in Slovak) broadening public access to court review concerning environment matters. In both legislative initiatives our experts cooperate with the Ministry of Justice. Additionally in our work we draw attention to the lack of harmonization of national law with the law of the European Union by submissions to the European Commission (example I., example II. in Slovak).

VIA IURIS communicates outcomes, issues and legal means available within this topic to the wide public. Media presentations, educational films and section First Legal Aid of this web page are intended for the public use. We have also published legal manuals for citizens and organized series of trainings called Legal Exchange Forums especially for activists and non-governmental organizations. We award the civil courage, which often brings personal risks, by the White Crow Award granted in cooperation with our partners from the Fair-Play Alliance.

Lawyers cooperating with VIA IURIS, represent citizens in cases before public authorities and courts. We focus on cases of precedential value with a potential to impact other similar cases. Advocates also represent cases before the Slovak Constitutional Court and international institutions, such as the European Court of Human Rights or the Court of Justice of European Union.

Some of our important cases are:

• Pezinok landfill

• Access to information at the municipal level: at the end of the long battle local residents received minutes from the meeting of the town council in the town Hlohovec concerning the municipal budget; and in the town Jazernica information concerning municipal expenditures; we defended the right of citizens in Považská Bystrica to take pictures of the town council members during voting

• Participation in the proceedings with impact on health and quality of life: more than 3000 participants joined the decision-making in the case of the Power plant in Trebišov; residents of Ružomberok participated in the proceedings concerning enlargement of paper production giant Mondi; we have defended rights of residents in Prešov, Považská Bystrica and Žiar nad Hronom in decision-making concerning motor-ways directly effecting their lives and property; we have also defended rights of residents in Slatinka and Ďubákovo who were threatened with forced evictions in connection with water dams planned during the socialism

• Freedom of speech: we have defended a local self-government representative who was accused for an article concerning a suspicious transfer of municipal property; as well as a journalist accused by the former Minister of Economy for a TV program about suspicious financial flows during the construction of Kia-Hyundai factory; thirdly we have represented an activist whose employment contract at the government institution has been illegally terminated likely due to his public engagement