Parliament Fails to Elect Any Candidates for Constitutional Court

Bratislava, February 12 (TASR) – Parliament has not elected any candidates for the posts of Constitutional Court judges, MPs have announced.

During the vote 132 MPs were present, 13 of them did not hand over their ballots. Out of 119 ballots 53 were invalid and 66 were valid.
The vote was public. A public vote was rejected by the senior governing Smer-SD party whose members handed over empty ballots. The public vote was approved by MPs before the vote took place. It was supported by coalition parties Most-Hid and SNS, which had signalled that it doesn’t mind a public vote.
Most-Hid has earned criticism from Smer-SD’s head Robert Fico for its approach to the vote and for the fact that it’d stated it wouldn’t support Fico’s candidacy. Fico in the end withdrew his candidacy and at the same time he declared that if candidates for constitutional judges are elected in Parliament as a result of Most-Hid voting with the Opposition, the coalition agreement will be violated with serious consequences for the functioning of the Government.