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Lipsic: Judges' Complaints Organised by Justice Ministry
Friday 05 February 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, February 5 (TASR) - It was the LS-HZDS-led Justice Ministry that organised the mass petition of lawsuits submitted by hundreds of Slovak judges for alleged discrimination in salaries compared to judges of the Special Court, former justice minister Daniel Lipsic (Christian Democrats/KDH) said on Friday.
Lipsic claimed that the Justice Ministry – in his view, bent on inflicting as much damage to the court (introduced by Lipsic) as possible – facilitated the lawsuits by not appealing against a court ruling on the matter that it lost in a legal dispute with a certain judge.
The Bratislava court decided on Monday that the state is to pay almost €90,000 in compensation to Trencin Regional Court judge Ondrej Gaborik. The court said that Special Court judges receiving higher salaries than their colleagues from normal courts was discriminatory.
"A judgement of this kind isn't lawful or impartial, nor is it in line with sound morals," said Lipsic, adding that the Non-Discrimination Act deals with discrimination based on sex, religious conviction, race, national and ethnic origin, age, health handicaps and sexual orientation. "Based on which of these reasons have the judges decided about the judges that weren't on the Special Court?" asked Lipsic, stressing that any judge could have applied for a post in the Special Court at the time.
According to Lipsic, similar lawsuits could be prevented by adopting a law that would introduce a "certain form of taxation" or a very low ceiling for compensations.
"The justice system needs radical changes," emphasised Lipsic. He proposed that judges should be elected by the public (as is often the case in the USA). At the same time, he stressed that the untrustworthiness of the justice system in Slovakia is becoming an obstacle in attracting new investments.
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