Brussels, 18/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 16 October the Venice Commission (the Council of Europe's advisory body on constitutional matters) considered that the changes brought by the Hungarian government to the laws on the judiciary are “in the right direction”. In its opinion, the commission particularly welcomed the amendments brought to the powers of the president of the National Judiciary Office (NJO), which have been curbed, a Council of Europe press release states. “Amendments that limit the NJO president's term of office and subject his or her discretionary powers to judicial review were positively assessed by the commission as increasing the independence of the judiciary”, the press release states.
However, the advisory body remains critical of two issues - the manner of reinstatement of judges who had been forced to retire, and the practice of transferring cases without selection criteria. On the first issue, the commission recalls that in July, the Hungarian constitutional court deemed unconstitutional a previous law which had forced judges older than 62 to retire, but the NJO president “has made it too difficult for judges who wish to return to work, by requiring judges to apply to a labour court to have their dismissal invalidated and then to re-apply for work”, the Venice Commission explains. In the commission's opinion the Hungarian parliament should adopt a law simply reinstating all those eligible who wish to be reinstated.
On the second issue that it criticises, the Venice Commission explains that the overburdened courts in Budapest have been authorised to lighten their caseloads by transferring cases to courts outside the capital. However the commission considers that “without selection criteria such transfers could result in either unfair trials or courts that do not have the means to properly address transferred cases”.
In spring 2012 both the European Commission and the Hungarian government had appealed to the Venice Commission at the opening of a series of infringement procedures against Budapest - on laws relating to the judiciary and on the law on the Hungarian central bank. The Venice Commission had been asked to give its opinion on the state of democracy and the judicial system in Hungary. (SP/transl.fl)