Trust in the Courts Falls Again

According to the latest survey realized by VIA IURIS already 74 % of people do not trust in the judiciary and courts. Distrust of the public has never reached such a high level and these results confirm negative trends which have been persisting in Slovakia for already 20 years.

Participants in the survey were asked: To what extent do you trust or do not trust in the following institutions- courts and judiciary? 37 % of participants expressed their absolute distrust in both institutions, 37 % answered they rather do not trust, 20 % said they do trust, 2 % trust completely and 5 % of participants did not know to answer the question.

„We believe that one of the reasons which has contributed to increase the distrust of the public were controversial decisions recently adopted by one of the senates of the Supreme Court which was presided by Štefan Harabin. Thanks to careful media monitoring of these cases and negative impacts they have had the public became very sensitive to them” stated Milan Šagát, Executive Director of VIA IURIS.

However this decrease of the trust might be also a consequence of the fact that subjectively public has not perceived positive changes in the judiciary and relation of such changes with the quality of their lives. In the present survey realized by VIA IURIS Up to 64 % of participants confirmed that they did not note any positive change within the judiciary during the last year.

Representative quantitative survey among the residents of the Slovak Republic major than 18 years was implemented by VIA IURIS in cooperation with Agency Focus between 1 and 9 September 2015. Survey involved 1003 interviewed who were selected through a quota system based on the socio-demographic indicators (sex, age, education, nationality, size of residence, region).

The public opinion poll was realized as a part of the project that was financially supported by Think Tank Fund in the Open Society Foundations and Fund for Transparent Slovakia in Pontis Foundation.