Draft Constitutional Amendment on Slovak Judiciary Made Public

On July 13, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) of the Slovak Republic submitted a draft constitutional amendment on judicial reform into the interdepartmental review. The bill is an attempt at a comprehensive reform of the general and constitutional judiciary that implements the main theses of the 2020-24 govt proclamation programme. 

The interdepartmental review restricts pathways to legislative and constitutional change by the executive. Unlike MPs, who are legally exempt from the prepublication, the Cabinet and Ministries must first submit every proposed change of the law on the books into the interdepartmental process (under Act No. 400/2015 Coll. on Lawmaking and the Collection of Laws). The process allows the general and professional public, as well as anyone interested, to comment on the bill before it is presented to Parliament. The prepublication of a piece of legislation allows the public to control the exercise of lawmaking and even constitution-making powers. The author of the bill ought to consider the comments and either agree or disagree with the changes or make alternative proposals.

The MoJ seemingly consulted the constitutional amendment bill on judicial reform widely, including the Judicial Council, the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic and other stakeholders. It remains to be seen if the proposed reforms will be received well by the general and constitutional judiciary. The bill focuses on these critical items:

• reform of the composition of the Judicial Council;

• review of the property and declared assets of judges;

• reform of the Constitutional Court;

• constitutional review of legislation in complaint proceedings;

• introduction of retirement age for lower court and Constitutional Court judges; and

• the establishment of the Supreme Administrative Court.

According to the explanatory note to the bill, the MoJ has the following opinion of a constitutional amendment: 

A sensible and prudent constitution-maker implements more extensive changes to the text of the Constitution either (i) due to "tectonic" societal change and the consequent need to adapt the text of the Constitution to the new social contract (in which case the amendment is remaking the Constitution to reflect the new identity of the community), or (ii) due to a change of paradigm of understanding and out views on the optimal design of a specific constitutional mechanism, design of govt power or the function of a constitutional body (in which case the amendment corrects specific elements of the constitutional identity of the community). From this point of view, the proposed constitutional amendment falls within the second category of changes to the master-text Constitution [...] 

Let us return to this reform after some time and judge whether the proposed reforms better specific points of constitutional design or instead negatively impact the document's identity.

Suggested citation: Šimon Drugda, "Draft Constitutional Amendment on Slovak Judiciary Made Public" (slovakconlaw, 26 July 2020) <https://slovakconlaw.blogspot.com/2020/07/draft-constitutional-amendment-on.html>