A number of civil society organizations issued a joint statement by which they call on Parliament to ensure transparency in the external assessment of judges and prosecutors. The document was published after the MPs gave a first reading to a bill that refers to this process and this stipulates that the assessment will be published only with the consent of the assessed persons, IPN reports.
According to the signatory organizations, the provision is dangerous and can endanger the work of the assessment commissions, while the absence of transparency in the process can discredit the external assessment of judges and prosecutors. “The persons with integrity problems will not agree with the publication of the assessment and, if the interviews could not be followed publicly, it will be hard for the assessment commissions to counter the attacks and such situations will contribute to discrediting and absence of trust in the process,” runs the statement.
The signatories consider the non-publication of the recordings is senseless as assessment commissions’ reports will be debated in the meetings of the Superior Council of Magistracy and the Superior Council of Prosecutors, which are public in accordance with the law. Such an approach by the lawmakers seems to be discriminatory against the persons who were already assessed by the pre-vetting commission and against the judges and the candidates for judge of the Supreme Court of Justice, whose assessments are public.
The SCOs called upon Parliament to review Article 16, paragraph 3 of the bill on the external assessment of judges and prosecutors and to exclude the provision concerning the non-publication of recordings without the assessed person’s consent.
When the statement was published, this had been signed by 12 NGOs, with the list remaining open to signing. The document was remitted to Parliament, the pre-vetting commission, the external assessment commission of the Supreme Court of Justice, the Ministry of Justice and the self-managing bodies of judges and prosecutors.
