The European Commission has already started communicating with the Judicial Council
On September 26, 2024, the President of the Judicial Council of the Slovak Republic, Marcela Kosová, received with disillusion the medialized information that the European Commission had finally admitted after seventeen days that the invitation of the Judicial Council had been delivered to the Commission on September 9, 2024. Meanwhile, on September 20, the media published the information that European Commissioner Didier Reynders had not received an invitation to the planned session of the Judicial Council on September 19, 2024.
The European Commission started communicating with the Judicial Council only on the evening of September 26, 2024. The President of the Judicial Council received a letter from the European Commissioner for Justice by email via the Office of the Judicial Council of the Slovak Republic. In this letter, the Commissioner stated that he was not available on the given date and could not attend the Judicial Council´s meeting. Unfortunately, this fact was not communicated to the President in time. The European Commissioner therefore offered to the President of the Judicial Council a meeting in Brussels.
In this context, the President of the Judicial Council points out that on July 9, 2024, the Slovak Representation of the European Commission sent an invitation to the meeting on the Rule of Law Report, which was to take place on July 24, 2024, and that this is therefore a comparable time. She also adds that the meeting was cancelled for technical reasons only one day before it was due to take place. "The European Commission, with the generous help of Denník N daily and the former President of the Judicial Council Ján Mazák, mystified the public about the invitation of the European Commissioner for Justice. It created a negative image of the Judicial Council even though I have clearly demonstrated that the official invitation was sent by email to two European Commission´s email addresses as early as September 9, 2024, at 12.57 p.m. and no feedback was received from either email address about the non-delivery of the invitation or of any technical or other failure. I have also clearly demonstrated the detailed movement of the mailed invitation, down to the seconds from the post office in Bratislava to its delivery to the European Commission", stated Marcela Kosová.
At the same time, the President of the Judicial Council expressed doubt that "how can we trust the correctness of the Rule of Law Report itself, when the European Commission communicates such a basic thing as an invitation in such a confused and incorrect manner". She also added that she had already managed to inform all the members of the Judicial Council of the Commissioner's letter and would convey to him, on behalf of the entire Judicial Council, the continued interest in a meeting, on the floor of the Judicial Council at any of its planned sessions.
