The Judicial Council of the Slovak Republic invited the European Commissioner Didier Reynders to its September meeting

The President of the Judicial Council of the Slovak Republic, Marcela Kosová, has opposed the allegation published in Denník N, which states that Commissioner Didier Reynders was not invited to the planned September meeting of the Judicial Council. On the contrary, it was the initiative of the President of the Judicial Council to discuss the identified shortcomings of the Rule of Law Report in a direct discussion with the Commissioner. She also took steps to accomplish it.

The official invitation was sent on September 9, 2024, at 12.57 pm directly to Didier Reinders' email address as well as to the Commission's official email address. The hard copy of the official invitation was also sent by mail on the same day.

No feedback was received from either email address regarding the non-delivery of the invitation or any technical or other failure when sending it.

Apart from that, the full Opinion of the Judicial Council of the Slovak Republic, including the information on the invitation of the Commissioner, was published in both Slovak and English on the website of the Judicial Council on September 9, 2024, together with the full Opinion of the Judicial Council in both languages, and subsequently covered by a wide range of media.

"It is sad that the Commission immediately responded to Denník N's questions without communicating with the Judicial Council. It is undignified to refer these facts to the Commission through the media. I will communicate our objections directly to the Commission. The Judicial Council waited for almost two months to fix the "technical" problems that led to the last-minute cancellation of the meeting on the Rule of Law Report in July 2024. Since we did not get the awaited rescheduled meeting, we had to act," said Marcela Kosova.

The President also recalled the fact that if a source is formally mentioned in the Rule of Law Report in a so-called "footnote", it does not mean that its content has been taken into account or that the Commission has worked with it, at least in the form of a polemic. "We insist on our expert Opinion, in which such situations are also discussed and criticized. If someone claims that we have engaged in politics with this Opinion, they admit that the Rule of Law Report is a political tool," Marcela Kosová added.

Attachments:

Invitation  - 23kB
E-mail confirmation  - 133kB
Confirmation Slovak Post  - 20kB
Confirmation server e-mail  - 385kB