BRUSSELS – The European Commission unveiled a justice scoreboard on Wednesday (27 March) that ranks judicial systems in non-criminal cases across individual member states.
Hungary’s judicial system ranks higher in some categories when compared to other member states in a surprise challenge to the commission’s earlier concerns over its independence.
The commission in 2012 launched legal actions against Budapest for imposing a mandatory early retirement on judges.
The Brussels-executive also red flagged the additional powers of the President of the National Judicial Office (NJO) to designate a court in a given case and the transfer of judges without consent.
The NJO president manages the central administration of the courts and is elected by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Hungarian parliament.
But Hungary’s parliament is dominated by prime minister Viktor Orban’s centre-right Fidesz party and has been accused of planting officials sympathetic to the party line in key institutional posts where independence is presupposed.
EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding told reporters in Brussels the scoreboard’s data is from 2010, before Hungary reformed its constitution, and does not wholly reflect Hungary’s current judicial system.
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