Susko: Ministry Not After Specific Cases, Only Records of Their Distribution (2)

Bratislava, April 25 (TASR) - The Justice Ministry asked the Supreme Court only for access to records on how court cases have been distributed from the docket via the information system and it hasn't asked for access to the full database or specific files, Justice Minister Boris Susko (Smer-SD) declared on Thursday. Susko fails to understand why the Justice Ministry shouldn't have the right to supervise the process and signalled that this effort will continue, seeing as he believes that there are doubts over the distribution of cases. "Cases in our judicial system are assigned to judges randomly. The random assignment improves the odds of every single cases being heard by unbiased judges and it also eliminates potential interference with the decision-making of courts that would smack of corruption, while also reinforcing the certainty for trial defendants that their fate won't be decided by biased judges. It's quite certainly in the public interest to look into whether this system is truly random and hasn't been manipulated in any way," said Susko. Susko claimed that he was shocked when he learnt that the ministry hasn't been given access to records on the distribution of files, seeing as the ministry is the administrator of the information system. "Under previous governments, the Justice Ministry, for the purposes of supervision of the information system, had remote access to it, including the database of Supreme Court files," he pointed out and added that the Specialised Criminal Court had voiced no reservations against such supervision. Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) called on Supreme Court chair Jan Sikuta to provide information on how the most politically-sensitive cases had been distributed to judges in 2020-23 via the information system. Fico finds it suspicious that all politically-sensitive cases were assigned to senate 5T of judge Juraj Kliment. According to Fico, employees of the Supreme Court have refused to share this information with the Justice Ministry. Sikuta replied that cases are assigned under the rules of transparency. He took objection to claims by the Prime Minister and pointed out that requesting access to all files is unlawful. Fico's actions were criticised also by the opposition, which sees it as an interference with the judicial power. mf/mcs