Debate on Recall of Justice Minister Borec Begins

Justice minister Tomas Borec will be the first minister in Robert Fico’s new government to be subjected to a motion of no confidence raised by opposition parties KDH, SDKU and Most-Hid over his inactivity regarding problems in the judiciary.

Borec himself puts the vote, which will take place from 10 am today, down to politicising, especially from his predecessor Lucia Zitnanska from the SDKU party.

Opposition MPs are calling for something to be done about the lack of law enforceability, and the situation wasn’t helped when last week the governing SMER party blocked a parliamentary debate on the state of the judiciary.

Opposition parties were recently incited into action after a series of particularly questionable rulings came out of the courts, namely how former president Jan Kovac is to apologise and pay compensation to former head of the secret service SIS, Ivan Lexa, how supreme court head Stefan Harabin sued EUR 187,000 from the Attorney General and how judge Helena Kozikova claimed EUR 30,000 in damages from  investigative documentary filmmaker Zuzana Piussi, who had not received the judge’s consent to make a secret recording, but this is permissible by law if in the public interest.

Radoslav Prochazka from the KDH party noted how the dire situation in the judiciary was not a recent phenomenon as it had endured for 20 years already. He says he wont vote for the recall of Borec, adding that there were at least three other better qualified’ candidates in government that should have been recalled long ago.

The no confidence motion was the only way to open a debate on the subject in parliament after the Smer party refused to include the issue in the agenda last week, but everyone knows there is no chance of Borec being recalled, given the majority held in parliament by the stand-along government.