The Judicial Council of the Slovak Republic reacts to the Report on the Rule of Law 2024

The European Commission's recommendations on the rule of law have provoked a wave of many discussions. Several members of the Judicial Council wanted to seize the opportunity to express their views on this issue at the planned meeting with the representatives of the European Commission in Slovakia. However, the meeting has been cancelled at the last minute. The President of the Judicial Council of the Slovak Republic, Marcela Kosová expressed regret over this fact and therefore took steps to ensure that the Judicial Council, as a collective body, was able to express its views on this issue. "In particular, the report does not reflect the opinion of nine members of the Judicial Council delivered to the representatives of the European Commission on February 6, 2024 within the consultations with the European Commission. The Judicial Council sent the European Commission a list of a total of eleven media outputs of the members of the Judicial Council on topics such as the abolition of the Special Prosecutor's Office and changes to criminal codes, the content of which was not reflected in the report. For example, the European Commission did not mention in the RoL Report that some parts of the approved judicial reform of 2021 were declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic. As for the dismissal of the members of the Judicial Council, the European Commission, despite having information that the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic rejected the constitutional complaints of the dismissed members, did not mention this essential fact in the RoL Report. With regard to the crime of bending the law, there are explicit facts that have no basis in the legislation and reality. The same case is the Section 363 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. And there is more," says Marcela Kosová, President of the Judicial Council of the Slovak Republic.

One of the items on agenda of September session of the Judicial Council will therefore be the Opinion of the Judicial Council of the Slovak Republic on the Rule of Law Report 2024 prepared in Brussels on 24 July 2024. The Judicial Council also wants to point out the wrong conclusions in a direct discussion with the European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders. "The Judicial Council of the Slovak Republic, as a constitutional body of judicial legitimacy, is interested in discussing the identified shortcomings of the RoL Report transparently in a public meeting. On behalf of the members of the Judicial Council, I have invited Didier Reynders, EU Commissioner for Justice to the session and the invitation has been sent to him together with our opinion  in English. I hope that he will accept our invitation", Kosová  adds.

The 9th Session of the Judicial Council of the Slovak Republic with this item on the agenda is scheduled for September 19, 2024, starting at 09:00 a.m.