Top court enables inquiry into judges’ communist past
In a breakthrough verdict, the Czech Constitutional Court has opened judges’ communist past to public inquiry. The court ruled that people have the right to know whether judges were members of the pre-1989 Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, arguing their membership in the totalitarian party can have an effect on their interpretation of the law. The court said its ruling might open a debate on whether such judges should be assigned cases related to the communist past. But critics say that 20 years after the fall of communism, this is a dead issue.
An estimated 25 percent of the country’s 3,000 serving judges were members of the Communist Party before 1989. Until now, it has been impossible to determine their names or their exact number – the courts would reject all inquiries, claiming such information was sensitive personal data.
This is precisely what happened to Tomáš Pecina, who in 2007 asked a superior court in Olomouc for a list of its judges who were party members by November 1989.
But Mr Pecina did not take no for an answer, and three years and several lawsuits later, he finally succeeded. On Monday, the Constitutional Court ruled that people have the right to know which judges were party members before 1989.
Welcoming the verdict, Mr Pecina insists that former members of the communist party should not deliver justice today.
The Czech justice minister, Jiří Pospíšil, said he “essentially agreed” with the verdict; he believes people should be entitled to information about public authorities. The ministry will now have to deal with the verdict’s practical ramifications, and the courts will have to determine whether such information is even available.
However, critics of the latest ruling say it will do little to improve the quality of the Czech judiciary. The head of the Czech Judges’s Union, Tomáš Lichovník points out that all judges already had to undergo screening in the early 1990s. All who passed were re-appointed, including any former members of the communist party.
Others believe the verdict will lead to blackening former communist judges. Přemysl Janýr was a founding member of VONS, an unofficial organization which in the 1970s and 80s protected people persecuted by the communist judiciary.
Meanwhile, Tomáš Pecina says he will post online the complete list of judges who were once members of the communist party as soon as he gets it from the ministry.
