12 myths about the National Judicial Council (OBT)

12 myths about the National Judicial Council (OBT)

15/10/2018

1. The Hungarian judges asked OBT members to resign. – Members of the OBT were elected on a secret ballot by the electoral assembly on 15 January 2018 for six years. The cardinal law holds a safeguard: elected members of OBT shall not be dismissed. Neither the president of OBH nor court president nor a later electoral assembly is allowed to require or force the dismissal of any members and they don’t represent Hungarian judges in this sense.
2. The OBT functions illegitimately. – In May OBT has refuted the misinterpretation of the OBH President in detail. The OBH President stands alone with her legal opinion. Nobody has encountered or disputed the decisions and statements of OBT so far. The operation of OBT is transparent and legitimate.
3. The OBT undermines judicial self-governance. – The OBT embodies judicial selfgovernance, hence its members are elected by the judges, unlike the president of OBH, who is elected by the Parliament and the court presidents who are appointed by the President of OBH.
4. The OBT is revolutionary, political and oppositionist. – It is not a revolutionary activity to comply legal regulations and to enforce the compliance with these. All members of the Council are judges who don’t participate in any political activity. It is not a political activity if the Council indicates violation of law or speaks up in favour of independence of judges and judiciary but fulfilling its constitutional duties.
5. The OBT spoils the salary raise of judges. – The OBT is supporting the raise of judicial salaries. The Council asked questions from the Minister of Justice regarding the leeway of the judicial complement-raise. It is unfortunate that the reality of the 150% raise that was announced by the President of OBH was not confirmed by the government. A judicial salary that provides decent and fair standard of living is not a gracious gift or gratuity from the administration since this is an important guarantee of judicial independence. The representative of the Ministry of Justice firmly refuted the malicious presumption that the failure of the salary raise is in any connection with the operation of the OBT.
6. The judiciary will be ordered under the Ministry of Justice on account of the OBT. – The legislation is allowed to make a political decision about the justice system. When OBT supervises central judicial administration, it complies with its statutory obligation according to the Fundamental Law and acts according to its statutory role in the present administration model. Notwithstanding the foregoing, there are international standards about the active role of the judicial self-governance bodies in various fields of judicial administration.
7. The OBT uses a critical approach on all issues. – The Fundamental Law gives OBT the role to supervise central administration of the judiciary. Straightforward, this goes along with critical examination of OBH’s operation. However, it is not true that OBT only focuses on problems, since the Council made several positive statements in the past six months, although admittedly shortcomings need usually further actions.
8. Judges from the central region are over-represented in the OBT. – On the contrary, the central region is proportionately under-represented in the electoral assembly. The Metropolitan High Court of Appeal has 4, the Metropolitan Court has 20, the Budapest Environs Regional Court has 14 electors out of 130, nevertheless more than one-third of all Hungarian judges operate on these courts.
9. Members of the OBT are careerist and lead by individual interests. – OBT members don’t gain any benefit with their duties, and they are unlikely to get any assignments from central administration for certain administrative and professional duties with pecuniary rewards. Moreover, the opposite happened in the past: members of OBT were facing various attacks and persecution from the president of OBH and some court presidents.
10. Some members of the OBT are motivated by individual grudges. – The OBT functions as a body. It takes decisions often unanimously or with large majority. In many cases resolutions are justified in writing and the debate before the voting can be traced in the minutes. Resolutions and minutes of OBT are publicly accessible on the webpage.
11. Members of the OBT are unable to compromise and not willing to cooperate. – In the sessions of OBT all members and stakeholders with consultation rights has the opportunity to express their opinion. It is unacceptable if some electors confront the Council with the false allegation on lack of cooperation, since they had the opportunity to become members, represent their standpoint in the sessions and influence the operation of council in the future but, despite this, they were unwilling to accept the candidacy in October’s electoral assembly.
12. There is no peace in the judiciary because of the members of OBT. – Members of OBT, like all judges, are also members of the judiciary, they have a common interest for the calm and continuous dialogue. President of OBT always invites the president of OBH for all sessions and forwards all proposals. Despite, OBH president doesn’t appear in the sessions and doesn’t answer the questions of the Council. The OBT has a statutory obligation to call attention to all violations and infringements of law even if this goes along with conflicts.