Transcript | 5. lecture: The independence of justice as a requirement of the impartiality of verdicts. (Lucia Žitňanská) - University for modern Slovakia

Judiciary is in the Slovak republic executed by independent and impartial courts. Judiciary is executed at all levels separately from other state organs. So much for the Slovak constitution.

We put our disputes to court, when don't have any other option to solve it. For it to decide, which side is the lawful. Objectively, based on proof and arguments, which are submitted by both sides. In order for the court to do so, the judge cannot have any interest on the result of the verdict, cannot favour one side of the argument over the other for any reason. Impartiality - a true one, but it also has to appear so - is the basic requirement of courts, judges.

How to solve disputes, who should solve them, who should decide about guilt and punishment, how to guarantee the impartiality of verdicts in these things, those are question, for which the humanity has been looking for since the moment they have decided to entrust the decisions about disputes to a third party. And it looks like the questions have stayed the same.

Let's have a look at the fist democracy, Athens.

"After turning thirty years of age, every civilian was electable into the official offices or sat in court. Later were 500 judges for each proceeding chosen from the congress through a lottery. They took an oath and received a judge's badge, a bronze tinfoil with the Athenian own and the name of the judge. A definite selection took place in the morning of the proceeding, so that the accused weren't able to bribe the judges. The proceeding had to end in that same day, the judges were forbidden to go away from the court and the verdict had to be announced before sunset. For the administration and justice was the Council of five hundred, where every civilian could be elected once in their life, important. (Krsková, A.: Dejiny politickej a právnej filozofie, Iura Edition, 2011, p. 17)

One nearly feels the need to say, that everything has already been invented. Only the era has changed.

Judging was public, today we have public proceedings. The control of "judging" by the public, public announcement of the verdict and its public justification contributes to the court, judge not to decide in favour of one side, it forces to responsibility for the verdict and its understandable justification, the public gives a feedback to the court, whether the court perceives justice the same as civilians and at the same time contributes to a lawful consciousness of the society. In a modern society it is not judged on squares, people don't go to proceedings even if they are public, only the most important cases are decided before the sight of the public. The publication of verdicts is a tool, how to create space for a feedback of the civilians, of the public in the relation to justice. If justice is according to law and lawful decisions of the courts in a sharp conflict with the perception of justice of the society, the state is losing trust.

A random selection of judges - today a random allocation of cases guarantees, that the dispute parties cannot choose a judge, in order to to influence one. The same principle has lived over centuries, only the technique and technology have changed.

Today, the judges can leave the court. The imperviousness of the judge is guaranteed by quite a complex system of commands and prohibitions, how a judge should behave also in civil life, which is enforced by a disciplinary proceeding. The ethical codex and with it linked culture of the judge state can, and in traditional democratic countries also does, fill an important role.

The duty to make a decision before dusk is a clear command to decide quickly, which is also a request today. The courts have for some types of decisions a limit (for example for the decision about precautions, for decisions in things related to minors). The speed of actions conditions the amount of cases, which are decided by the court, the capacity of the judiciary, the condition of judiciary, work organisation in court. We have shown the numbers in the previous lecture.

The institutionalised independence of justice is not purposeless. It should guarantee impartial verdicts of courts without political influence. Just as important as the decisions without political influence is, that the decisions aren't under the influence of any other than political interest. The independence of justice as a premise of impartial decisions is not a privilege of justice, is not a privilege of judges, it is a privilege of people, who come before court.