Robert Fico attacked the Supreme Court again. They wanted to take the entire database from us, that’s unthinkable, responds President Šikuta

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Today, Prime Minister Robert Fico once again verbally attacked the Supreme Court (NS SR) and some judges. On Wednesday afternoon, he again challenged the allocation of files in court. According to Smer, it is suspected that important cases in recent years have been brought to the table by judges from the 5T panel, in which Juraj Kliment also served.

“The Ministry of Justice requested the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic to make available information from the information system, which, by the way, is managed by the Ministry of Justice in the courts. And in these courts, the allocation of files is decided through this information system. That is the so-called random allocation of files by judges. And since the 5T Senate and Mr. Kliment were getting everything, we wanted to see if there was any problem,” said the Prime Minister on the press release.

They came for the entire database

The President of the Supreme Court, Ján Šikuta, responded to the Prime Minister’s criticism. “I must absolutely and emphatically reject that the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic would refuse any kind of cooperation, including cooperation regarding doubts in the allocation of files,” he declared at a press conference. According to him, the vetting commission from the Ministry of Justice did not want to deal with specific files that it considers problematic – but came to take the entire database of the Supreme Court.

“It is not conceivable that the Ministry of Justice would come and take the entire database of the Supreme Court. As the president of the court, I have a responsibility. In that database are all the files, including personal data, that relate to all proceedings that were and are being held before the Supreme Court.

We explained to them that this has no support in the law at all,” emphasized Šikuta. According to him, the commission first requested data from 2001, when they found that it was too many terabytes of data, they specified the scope from 2019.

Šikuta: They didn’t want to reveal the cards

At the court, people from the ministry were offered access to specific files that they identified as problematic. “We refused to hand over the entire database but offered to cooperate in investigating specific complaints. They didn’t want to reveal what they were about,” added the president of the court.

According to its chairman, the Supreme Court is interested in having the doubts – if there are any – properly checked. He is ready to provide relevant cooperation. “If there were such serious suspicions, as some government officials are operating, then it is not for the control of the ministry, but rather it would be at the level of criminal proceedings,” thinks the president of the court.

What the employees of the Ministry of Justice wanted to do was called phishing. “It’s not possible to query the entire database and then hunt for what I want.”

Prime Minister Fico: Everything went to Kliment

“This is no interference with your independence, impartiality. Yes, you are independent, you are impartial, no one cares about your decisions. But we want to know how you made decisions through the information system at the Supreme Court when it came to the allocation of the files of the most sensitive political cases. Everything went to Kliment,” Fico challenged the President of the Supreme Court through the media. He told the story of what it was supposed to be like in the Supreme Court.

“The employees of the Ministry of Justice came to the Supreme Court, and there they didn’t know what to say, so they said that they answer only to the President of the Slovak Republic, Ms. Čaputová, which is complete nonsense. And they refused to release information related to the information system,” Robert Fico complained about the Supreme Court’s actions. The president of the court, Ján Šikuta, was allegedly not at the visit from the ministry because he “ran away”. Šikuta responded that he did not run away, but left after three hours for other work duties.

The President of the Supreme Court perceives the recent statements of politicians as coercion. “It is an attack on the independence of the judiciary. We try to do our work independently, honestly and fairly. If there is a division of power, then there is the judiciary, of which I am a part, and it is inadmissible to interfere in this way so that we can do our work peacefully without various pressures,” he said.

According to Robert Fitz, the Ministry of Justice had the same request for the Specialized Criminal Court, which allegedly made the file allocation information system available.

They want to strip him of his robe

Prime Minister Fico addressed Judge Kliment in two press conferences. “If I were Mr. Kliment (president of the Senate of the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic, editor’s note), I would pack up today,” he said at the beginning of April.

In a few days, he announced that he expected disciplinary proceedings against the judge of the Supreme Court and his removal from the judicial robe. “If this is not for the dismissal of Supreme Court judge Juraj Kliment, then I don’t know what he would have to do,” declared the prime minister.

The prosecuted lawyer and advisor to the Prime Minister, Marek Para, also spoke at the press conference. He was one of those whose detention was decided in May 2022 by the senate headed by Judge Kliment.

Neither the Prime Minister nor other participants mentioned the opposite case of Robert Kaliňák. In 2022, the current Minister of Defense was prosecuted in the so-called Twilight case, Robert Fico was also accused, but the members of the parliament did not agree to his extradition to decide on custody. The Senate of the Supreme Court, including Judge Kliment, released the accused Kaliňák from custody. He partially upheld the defense, criticizing the wording of the indictment on the criminal group written by the police and the prosecutor’s office.

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