The over 400 judges working in the system could have their integrity and qualifications checked starting with this summer already. The members of the Superior Council of Magistracy will be the first to undergo such an assessment. The judges with negative assessment results will be removed from the system. It is estimated that the assessment of all the judges will last for about five years. A similar approach will also be applied to prosecutors in the future, IPN reports.

The draft law that was remitted to the Council of Europe for appraisal provides that the judges will be assessed by a college consisting of ten members – six judges of courts of law of all levels, three representatives of civil society designated by Parliament and a representative of the National Institute of Justice. The college members will be chosen by a monitoring commission that will also consist of ten persons – five experts fielded by Parliament and five foreign experts recommended by the development partners.

According to Minister of Justice Fadei Nagachevski, the assessors will also make sure that the property of judges matches the declared incomes. Investigations will be ordered if inconsistencies are discovered. If the judges cannot prove the legal origin of their incomes or if it’s determined that these passed judgments in conflicts of interests, a negative appraisal report will be produced. The college’s decision will be remitted to the Superior Council of Magistracy, which will make a decision. The decision taken by the college could be challenged in another specialized panel at the Appeals Court.

All the judges will be assessed at random.  The authorities plan to launch the assessment process in June-July. After the bill is appraised by the Council of Europe, this will be sent to the Venice Commission for evaluation so that an expert opinion is presented in March and the bill could be submitted to Parliament in April.