JUSTICE MINISTER HARABIN POISED TO BECOME SUPREME

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRATISLAVA 000248

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EUR/CE, INL/C, DRL
DOJ FOR OPDAT, N, ACKER; M. MENDELSOHN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/08/2019
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KCOR LO
SUBJECT: JUSTICE MINISTER HARABIN POISED TO BECOME SUPREME
COURT CHAIRMAN

REF: A. BRATISLAVA 166

B. BRATISLAVA 47

Classified By: Classified by CDA, a.i., Keith Eddins for reasons 1.4 b
and d


1. (C) Introduction and Summary: The Slovak Judicial Council
will elect a new Supreme Court Chairman on June 22. It
appears virtually certain that Justice Minister Stefan
Harabin, to whom half of the members of the Judicial Council
are subordinate or otherwise beholden, will win. Justice and
the rule of law will be the big losers. Under the guise of
"enhancing judicial independence," Harabin has managed to
create a closed system in which he and his allies throughout
the judiciary have enormous power but almost no
accountability. The Justice Minister, whose incessant
campaign to close the Special Court against Corruption
recently produced a tragi-comically flawed finding by the
Constitutional Court shutting down the Special Court, has
already done grave damage to the Slovak judiciary. But if
pending legislation (drafted by Harabin himself) designed to
give the Chairman of the Supreme Court broad new powers
passes, Harabin's hegemony will essentially be total and
complete. To appreciate Harabin's judicial orientation, it's
worth noting that during a recent visit by his counterpart
from Moscow, Harabin said that the Russian model had been the
"inspiration" and basis for the draft Slovak legislation.
End Introduction and Summary.

From the Ashes...
--------------


2. (C) Only a few years ago, it seemed that Stefan Harabin
would be consigned to the dust bin of Meciar-era history. In
2002, Parliament unsuccessfully sought to strip him of his
role as Chairman of the Supreme Court because of allegations
of unethical and inept performance. In 2003, his
re-appointment to the job was stopped. With his ouster from
the chairman's position, several important judicial reforms
which had been blocked by Harabin were undertaken. Harabin's
successor at the Justice Ministry pushed through a series of
legislative and institutional innovations, including the
Special Court Against Corruption, that bolstered ethical and
effective implementation of justice.

...to the Pinnacle
--------------


3. (C) What a difference three years and an election can
make. In 2006, Harabin was nominated as Minister of Justice
by Vladimir Meciar, who himself had reemerged as a junior
coalition partner in Prime Minister Robert Fico's new
government. From the day he took office, Harabin began a
systematic campaign to oust reformist judges, to populate the
Justice Ministry with pliant political hacks, to undue
important legal reforms and to resuscitate the careers of
other judges, who were -- like himself -- suspected of
corrupt and unethical acts. In some cases, the judges he
installed in key positions were not only rumored to be
corrupt, but had been formally sanctioned for it.

4.(C) Despite low public ratings, proven ties to a suspected
heroin dealer, numerous public lies, and vulgar verbal
attacks on judges and politicians, Harabin has the support
that matters: from the Fico government and a wide range of
judges. The question is "why?" With respect to judges --
more than 25 regional judicial councils have issued
statements supporting his candidacy for the Supreme Court --
perhaps the most basic reasons can be reduced to money and
fear. When Harabin came into office, one of his first moves
was to pay judges overdue bonuses. During the last years of
the Dzurinda Government, these bonuses were not forthcoming
due to budget constraints. Not only did Harabin secure them
from 2006 on, he was able to cover past, unpaid bonuses. At
the same time, Harabin employed fear tactics by removing
judges in favor of his allies and supporting an explosion of
disciplinary actions against reformist judges or against
those who -- in some way -- were perceived as having crossed
him or his supporters.

Manipulating the System
--------------


5. (C) We recently attended a disciplinary hearing for Anna
Benesova, a judge accused of having forbidden the audiotaping
of a court proceeding. At the hearing, two judges who
presided with her testified to the fact that she had not

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banned the recording, but had merely tried to gain control
over a chaotic hearing in which a defendant was disorderly
and disrespectful. The true motivation behind the
disciplinary action appears to have been quite different, and
directly linked to Harabin himself. Judge Benesova was
presiding over a separate libel case that Harabin had brought
against the daily newspaper Sme. Apparently, it was evident
that she did not plan to rule in favor of Harabin. On the
day her libel ruling was due, Harabin announced that Benesova
was to be immediately suspended pending resolution of a
complaint he had received about her. To this day, the judge
has been on suspension, receiving a significantly reduced
salary. The new judge assigned to the Harabin libel case
unsurprisingly ruled in the Justice Minister's favor.


6. (C) The number of specious, politically-motivated
disciplinary actions has sent a chill through the judiciary.
Some courageous judges are beginning to speak up, but they
are a still a small minority. In a recent op-ed, one quoted
a fellow judge to describe the prevailing attitude: "I have a
family, I can't do it. The very next day I could expect an
inspection, followed by a disciplinary proceeding and a
recall." The author of the piece, Judge Katarina Javorcikova
concluded: "I, too, have a family, loans, and the same fear.
But unlike them, fear about myself is lesser than the fear of
the reality that judges will become nothing but tools in the
hands of powerful figures in the Slovak justice sector."

Compromising Material?
--------------


7. (C) Why the Slovak government, and by that we mean Prime
Minister Fico and his Smer colleagues, continues to acquiesce
in Harabin's heavy-handed machinations is less clear. It is
commonly assumed in Slovak political circles that Vladimir
Meciar and Harabin hold too many compromising chits for Fico
to push back. Since Meciar notoriously employed the Slovak
services in the 1990s in a constant campaign to track and
intimidate his opponents -- and even his allies -- it's
likely that he possesses incriminating information about many
of today's prominent officials and businessmen, including
Smer officials and their many dodgy financial backers. Given
the now-poisonous relationship between Meciar and Slovak
President Gasparovic -- who was once Meciar's deputy and who
is widely reported to have been involved in suspect
privatizations -- many believe that Gasparovic will be
equally vulnerable to such pressure when it comes time to
formally ratify Harabin's appointment.

The Arrogance of Power
--------------


8. (C) With the well-wired support of the judiciary and the
government, Harabin has reached new heights in arrogance.
Shortly after his nomination to be Supreme Court Chairman, he
sent letters to three Slovak dailies -- Sme, Pravda, and Plus
Jeden Den -- demanding what the UK Ambassador characterized
as "extortionist" payments. In each letter he claimed that
unspecified articles published over the past year have
damaged his reputation by linking him to the mafia. He asked
for payment of 200,000 Euros in damages from each paper, to
be sent to him directly within 40 days. He then closed each
letter with a none-too-subtle hint, reminding the publishers
that he has previously won larger awards from them in court.


9. (C) We will report septel on this latest effort to cow the
press, as well as the rash of high-level libel suits won by
the Justice Minister and other prominent political figures.
But on June 6, Sme and Pravda printed Harabin's request and
stated clearly their belief that it was a blatant attempt to
intimidate the media in the run-up to the June 22 Supreme
Court election. In a show of defiance, Sme also re-ran the
text of the recorded phone call between Harabin and suspected
heroin trafficker Baki Sadiki that is presumably the basis
for Harabin's demand. One recent story demonstrates why
Harabin may have taken this step: The Slovak Governance
Institute, an NGO, reported that while he was serving as
Supreme Court Chairman in 2001 and 2002, Harabin awarded
himself the largest bonuses ever given to a judge. In 2001,
he gave himself an extra 400,000 Slovak Crowns; in 2002, it
was 600,000. Harabin, who has argued for years that higher
pay for Special Court judges (whose salaries were set by
Parliament) was discriminatory, clearly had no qualms about
exploiting a gap in the law to provide himself wildly
inflated compensation.


10. (C) Harabin's willingness to push the envelope of the law

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(not to mention the truth) isn't just an domestic problem.
In response to a request from the OECD Chairman to explain
why Slovakia had not, contrary to commitments, adopted
sufficient legislation on corporate criminal liability, he
responded that the decision of the Constitutional Court on
the constitutionality of the Special Court would enable him
to amend the Slovak Criminal Code appropriately. This is a
patent fabrication; there neither was nor is a connection
between the two issues.

New Powers Await
--------------


11. (C) As described reftels, Harabin has set the stage for
taking near complete control of the judiciary. Pending
before Parliament is legislation unanimously approved by the
Fico government that would transfer key competencies from the
Ministry of Justice to the Chairman of the Supreme Court --
just as Harabin himself prepares to make the same move. Most
importantly, the Chairman and the Judicial Council will be
able to decide when to suspend or remove a judge or to
reinstate one. According to Harabin himself, the inspiration
for this legislation and division of powers came from Russia.
We're left to wonder whether Harabin didn't also look to
Russia in conceiving the notion of moving himself from one
position to another to hold onto power for as long as
possible.

Embassy Comment
--------------


12. (C) Two months ago we characterized the situation in the
Slovak judiciary as "critical" (ref A). Since then, the
prognosis has gotten even worse and Harabin has grown ever
bolder. His recent letters to Slovak publishers demonstrate
his sense of impunity and his utter disregard for such
fundamental democratic values as a free press. We concur
wholeheartedly with a number of like-minded EU embassies that
should Harabin be elected as Supreme Court Chairman at the
same time that the pending legislation takes effect, the
negative consequences for justice and rule of law in Slovakia
simply cannot be overstated. Neither the USG -- nor any
other ally -- can or should intervene in Harabin's election
to the Supreme Court. But the British and Dutch ambassadors
intend to flag for Prime Minister Fico how this confluence of
developments will appear in the eyes of his western partners
and the Charge plans to join them. While we hold out little
hope that Fico will do anything to modify the legislation, we
will at least be on record as having voiced our concerns and
alerted him to how negatively these developments will be
perceived among Slovakia's friends and allies.
EDDINS