Slovakia

Breach of the applicant’s right to a fair hearing by an impartial tribunal in disciplinary proceedings before the Constitutional Court in 2011, which related to his role as the President of the Supreme Court and which led to the imposition of a disciplinary sanction (violation of Article 6 § 1).

The judgment was published in the Judicial Review and disseminated among the judges of the Constitutional Court. Emphasising the isolated nature of the violation found, the authorities are of the view that the dissemination measures are sufficient to prevent future similar violations.

The Maxian and Maxianova group of cases concerns excessive length of civil proceedings, enforcement proceedings or administrative judicial proceedings examined by the civil courts (violations of Article 6 §1).

General measures: Practical and technical measures were adopted between 2013 and 2019 with a view of accelerating proceedings, followed by adoption of two new codes of civil procedure in 2015: the Code of Civil Dispute Procedure and the Code of Civil Non-dispute Procedure, as well as the new Code of Administrative Procedure. They entered into force from 1 July 2016. Moreover, wide-ranging awareness raising activities took place with a view to harmonisation of the case-law of the Constitutional Court with the European Court’s case-law on the matter. The reform of the judicial map is also underway. The relevant judgments were published and disseminated among domestic judges and in particular, Constitutional Court judges. The authorities also work on a project with the CEPEJ covering, among others, timeframes, statistical data collection and electronic case management.

The average length of civil proceedings in 2018 was 21,78 months, in 2019 – 21,6 months, and in 2020 – 21,66 months (calculated from the lodging of the case to the final decision of first instance). The authorities report that the methods of data collection and reporting have been synchronised with the CEPEJ norms. The authorities note that the statistics for the district and regional courts for the past three years (2018-2020) show that in almost all types of cases these courts dealt with, the clearance rate is near or above 100%, which indicates that the backlog is decreasing or not increasing in most cases. Although the disposition time has increased over the past three years in respect of the district courts and the Supreme Court, it nevertheless remains, in most type of the cases, below one year.

Excessive length of proceedings concerning a compensation claim attached to criminal proceedings and excessive length of criminal proceedings lasting for different periods between 2002 and present (violation of Article 6).

Questions about the excessive length of criminal proceedings were previously examined by the Committee of Ministers in the Krumpel and Krumpelová groups of cases, after the authorities had adopted acceleratory measures and an effective remedy to speed up proceedings, including pre-trial investigations. In the cases from the Javor and Javorova group, the delays have been accumulated in their main part or entirely after the measures in the Krumpel and Krumpelová group had been adopted.

As concerns the current case-law of the Constitutional Court on the civil claim attached to the criminal proceedings, the authorities refer to a letter from the President of the Constitutional Court, in which the latter analysed the practice of that court, cited judgments in which that court had referred specifically to the findings of the European Court in the Javor and Javorova judgment and concluded that the practice was in line with the case-law of the European Court.

The case concerns the lack of “relevant and sufficient” reasons provided by the courts when assessing if the applicant should remain in pre-trial detention after the quashing of his previous conviction (concerning two periods from April to September 2016 and from April to November 2017), as well as lack of special diligence by the authorities in the conducting of the procedure (violation of Art. 5 § 3).

An action report was provided on 22/03/2022 (DH-DD(2022)365). Comments by the Department for the Execution of Judgments were provided on 25 March 2022. Updated action report is awaited.

This group of cases concerns a breach of the right to a fair trial on account of extraordinary appeals lodged by the Prosecutor General and allowed by the Supreme Court against final, binding and enforceable judgments given in civil lawsuits in the applicant companies’ favor. The European Court found that the interference in the final decisions was in breach of the principle of legal certainly as well as that of equality of arms (violation of Article 6§ 1).

In the case of DRAFT – OVA A.S. the Court also found the interference with the applicants possessions may not be considered justified since a fair balance was not preserved and the applicant company was required to bear an individual and excessive burden (violation of Article 1 Protocol 1).

As of 1 July 2016, the new Code of Civil Contentious Procedure replaced the Code of Civil Procedure. New provisions on extraordinary appeals on points of law provide for a strengthened protection against unjustified interference with final, binding and enforceable judgments, in line with the Court’s case-law. The admissibility conditions for filing extraordinary appeals by the Prosecutor General have been considerably reduced; so, has been the time limit for bringing an extraordinary appeal – from one year to six months. The judgments in the present cases were also published and disseminated and, in the follow-up, the Constitutional Court on 18 March 2015 adopted a uniform opinion according to which extraordinary remedy could not be used to quash the judicial decision in cases of disagreement on assessment of facts or legal conclusions made by the courts in the ordinary proceedings. The authorities provided examples of the newest case-law which followed the abovementioned approach.