Active Politician Should Not Become Judges of the Constitutional Court

According to the most recent survey lead by VIA IURIS 8 from 10 persons consider as being inappropriate when active politicians run for the position of judge of the Constitutional Court.

Respondents of the survey were asked the following question: Do you consider as being appropriate or inappropriate when active politician becomes a candidate for the position of a judge of the Constitutional Court- e.g. deputy of the National Council of the Slovak republic, Minister of the Government and so on? Until 79,5 % of the public considers as inappropriate that active politician runs for the position of judge of the Constitutional Court. This situation is absolutely inappropriate for 50,9% of respondents and as rather inappropriate for 28,6% of respondents.

Altogether 10,2% of respondents consider it as appropriate. 1,5% of participants think it is absolutely appropriate and 8,7% of asked persons consider it as rather appropriate. One tenth of respondents (10,3%) did not know what to say in respect to this question.

„We were interested in the opinion of the public in respect to the discussed issue of filling vacancies in the Constitutional Court of the Slovak republic from the perspective of one of the criteria – being an active politician. Last election of candidates for positions of constitutional judges reveal that in Slovakia we need to initiate a discussion on professional and personal requirements for the exercise of this function,“ said Milan Šagát, executive director of VIA IURIS.

Present representative quantitative survey among residents of the Slovak republic having age up to 18, was implemented by VIA IURIS in collaboration with the Agency Focus in the period between 22 and 31 January 2016. The group of respondents consisted of 1009 persons, chosen by the quota method and in function of socio-demographic indicators (gender, age, education, nationality, size of the settlement, region).

Project “Personality of the Judge – the Key to Good Judiciary” was supported by the sum of 104 925.10 euros from the NGO Fund, which is financed by the EEA Financial Mechanism 2009-2014. The Fund is managed by Nadácia otvorenej spoločnosti – Open Society Foundation. The project aims to develop advocacy and watchdog activities and increase quality of selection of court officials and judges, as well as raise awareness and public sensitivity to problems of Slovak judiciary.