Premier Convenes Working Meeting to Deal with Situation in Judiciary

Bratislava, October 18 (TASR) – Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini (Smer-SD) has convened a working meeting for Monday, October 21 to propose possible legislative changes aimed at reforming the courts and prosecutor’s office, TASR learnt from the Government Office’s press and information department on Friday.

Interior Minister Denisa Sakova (Smer-SD), Justice Minister Gabor Gal (Most-Hid), Police Corps President Milan Lucansky and representatives of the Judicial Council and the Prosecutor-General’s Office are all due to attend the meeting.

Pellegrini said this week that he agrees with the need to cleanse the judiciary, a subject that President Zuzana Caputova spoke about after appointing new constitutional judges recently. He stated that it’s up to the judiciary to find the strength and courage to remove from office judges who reduce confidence in the Slovak judiciary. “The judiciary must find mechanisms within itself to be able to cleanse itself, as it is independent and separate from executive and parliamentary power,” said Pellegrini.

The premier thinks that the situation won’t change as long as judges who distort the system remain in their posts. According to him, the Judicial Council should act more vigorously. If it doesn’t have the necessary mechanisms and asks for them, it will be provided with them.
Opposition leaders from OLaNO, Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and We Are Family called on the prime minister on Thursday (October 17) to convene a roundtable and look for a way to deal with corrupt judges, prosecutors and police. They stated that if the premier failed to respond this week or next, they would start collecting signatures for a proposal to convene an extraordinary parliamentary session aimed at ousting him.