Courts blamed for chronic case delays.

(From The Slovak Spectator)

Byline: Martina Pisarova Spectator staff

Judges complain they are overwhelmed with cases COURT delays remain the Slovak judiciary's most infamous problem. In some cases, courts fail to deliver verdicts even after the last-resort authority, the Constitutional Court (US SR), has recognized citizens' complaints on excessively lengthy court proceedings. Jan Mazak, head of the US SR, told journalists on November 24 that his court received 61 repeated complaints from parties that had waited in vain to see their verdicts issued. Despite several new laws and measures introduced by the Justice Ministry, a positive turnaround has yet to be seen. The 61 repeated complaints are, in Mazak's opinion, "a very negative trend", as they prove that "in as many as 61 cases, general courts have disrespected the findings of the US SR." Mazak stated that, since the start of 2003, his court has received 1,722 complaints and similar filings, as well as another 438 items that were transferred from the court's agenda of the previous year. Of that amount, 718 complaints pertained to unjustified court procrastination. The court rejected some of these as ungrounded, but ruled on 214 complaints that the parties are to be paid nearly Sk10 million ([euro]241,000) in compensation. Judges were hesitant to speak about individual cases, but in general complained that their workloads were excessively high and that the Justice Ministry's efforts to speed up court proceedings and take the burden off of justices' shoulders were not working well in reality. Juraj Majchrak, head of the Slovak Association of Judges (ZSS), said that it was "definitely sad when judges don't respect court decisions; on the other hand, it is also true that justices are overwhelmed with cases. Often one judge has 600 or 700 cases to deal with - a year's workload in itself, not even taking into account that new cases continue to arrive. "We do not want to criticize the measures of the Justice Ministry because we really care about finding solutions to eliminate the backlogs and speed up court proceedings. We don't deny that that the ministry's goals are positive, but many judges have so far not felt the positive effects," Majchrak said on November 26. Drahomir Mrva, who is the deputy chairman of a district court in the northern Slovak town of Zilina, said: "I can speak for my sphere - the business register - we have never had any such [US SR] findings [on court delays]. "But it needs to be taken into consideration that every court has its own staff and administration. If the number of judges is lower [than needed], then court delays may appear," Mrva said. Slovakia has about 1,200 ...