GRECO

2019-03-01 szgabor1976
Off
Egyéb

GRECO examines the distribution of competencies and the cooperation between OBH
President and the National Judicial Council (OBT)

1st March 2019

Judit Fatalin, President of the National Judicial Council (OBT) and Viktor Vadász, member
of the OBT met GRECO’s experts in Budapest today. The Group of States against
Corruption (GRECO) is the Council of Europe anti-corruption body. GRECO’s experts led
a detailed examination on the Hungarian judicial system back in 2015, and published
the following recommendations:

  • Relating the appointment and promotion of judges GRECO recommended the
    amendment of the OBH President’s widespread powers in order to establish more
    competencies of the OBT on this field (page 28 of the report).
  • GRECO recommended the revision of the evaluation system of the lifetime judges in
    order to ensure equal treatment for the judges working on different levels, different
    field and in different courts of the country, furthermore, to avoid negative
    consequences which might threaten the judicial independence (page 30 of the
    report).
  • They criticized the competencies of OBH President regarding the secondment of
    judges from one court to another, and recommended the modification of the legal
    regulation with restrictions of the legal option for ordering a secondment without
    the judge’s consent (page 30 of the report)

GRECO’s experts – who also met the chief prosecutor and representatives of the
Ministry of Justice and vice-presidents of OBH – asked many questions to the
representatives of OBT today about the changes on the topics discussed in the 2015
report and the development of professional cooperation between the OBT and the OBH
President.
It is recalled that OBT adopted two reports in the last year, in which OBT made
objections regarding the appointment procedure of the OBH President due to the lack
of transparency and anti-constitutional exercise of powers. In 2015 GRECO’s experts
already emphasised, that there is no efficient remedy in the appointment procedure of
judges and court leaders, and they drew the attention to the possible dangers of
announcing applications unsuccessful. All these remarks are consistent with OBT’s legal
statements in this topic. OBT has the clear position that the OBH President is not
entitled to deem the OBT as it would not exist, since OBT is supervising her and not the
other way around. OBT will watch over the application of the cardinal acts – no matter
what obstacles are created by OBH President – and will signal any breach of law if
necessary in the future.
2
The GRECO report is in line with the OBT’s legislative proposal aiming to create more
restrictions in the competencies of the OBH President in the appointment procedure of
judges and court leaders. The 2015 report clearly stated that final decision shall be
adopted by the judicial council during the appointments, since the OBH President – who
is not elected by the judges but the Parliament – as a one-person leader gains
competency without control, and this fact is projecting discretionary decisions with the
possibility of bias.