The Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic acquitted prosecutor JUDr. Lucia Pavlaninová from a motion to initiate disciplinary proceedings for a disciplinary offense

On December 1, 2025, the Disciplinary Panel of the Supreme Administrative Court, by its decision in case file no. 33D/12/2024, acquitted the prosecutor of the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Žilina pursuant to Section 34, paragraph 2, letter b) of Act No. 432/2021 Coll. on the Disciplinary Code of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic on amendments and supplements to certain laws from the proposal of the Regional Prosecutor in Žilina to initiate disciplinary proceedings.

According to the disciplinary proposal, the prosecutor committed a disciplinary offense by exercising the powers of a prosecutor in criminal proceedings, or by performing acts of judicial cooperation in a criminal case conducted for the crime of founding, supporting and promoting a movement aimed at suppressing fundamental rights and freedoms pursuant to Section 421, Paragraph 1, Paragraph 2, Letters a), b) of the Criminal Code, performing acts of criminal proceedings or participating in them, while being aware of reasons questioning her impartiality due to her relationship with the injured party, a civic association, when she failed to immediately notify the immediately superior prosecutor authorized to decide on her exclusion from performing acts of criminal proceedings, in violation of the provisions of Sections 31 and 32, Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Procedure Code and also with Section 2.3 of the Code of Ethics for Prosecutors. According to the disciplinary proposal, the disciplinary accused was to campaign in favor of the damaged civic association between 2019 and 2023. The Panel of the Supreme Administrative Court acquitted the disciplinary accused from the disciplinary proposal, considering that the actions she committed were not a disciplinary offense.

The substance of the decision of the Disciplinary Panel is based on the legal conclusions resulting from the finding of the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic – case file no. IV ÚS 160/2024 in the case of a judge, which the Panel stated were also reasonably applicable in disciplinary proceedings against prosecutors. In this regard, the Disciplinary Panel pointed out the similarity of the subject matter of the finding and the case at hand, stating, among other things, that it had not been proven in the proceedings that any party who felt or could have felt affected by the actions of the prosecutor subject to disciplinary motion had initiated proper objection proceedings against her. This did not happen despite extensive media coverage of the case, with some potentially affected persons even directly indicating to the media their belief or assumption that they had already perceived facts during the implementation of the actions by the disciplinary accused that could indicate her bias. Despite this, it was not proven in the proceedings that they had filed an objection of bias against the disciplinary accused, which – according to the finding – also affects the possible disciplinary liability of the disciplinary accused.

Based on the motion and the subsequent evidence, the court also established that at the time stated in the factual sentence of the disciplinary motion, the disciplinary acused could not have had a disqualifying relationship with the injured civic association – as stated in the motion of the plaintiff – since for a significant part of the time period for which her selected actions were criticized, the injured civic association did not even exist.

The court – pointing to the results of the evidence – also stated that the last “expressions of sympathy”, which were criticized by the disciplinary accused in the motion and as they were also proven in the proceedings, were approximately 2 years before the implementation of the acts of the criminal proceedings themselves and, moreover, these were not directly linked to the person of the injured civic association. The court then admitted that the factual circumstances established by the evidence were not, in the context of their intensity and time perspective, of such a nature that they would have to establish an obligation for the disciplinary accused to notify the possible reasons for her bias, regardless of the fact that these activities did not directly concern the injured civic association, but an “international society-wide movement”, which did not act as an injured party in the proceedings.

The detailed reasoning of the decision – including further related arguments – will be included in its written version.

No appeal is admissible against the decision. The decision of the disciplinary panel was adopted by a vote of 5:0, i.e. unanimously.

The case was decided by panel no. 33D of the Supreme Administrative Court, composed of: President of the panel, prof. JUDr. PhDr. Peter Potásch, PhD., judges JUDr. Viola Takáčová, PhD., LL.M. and Mgr. Kristína Babiaková, and lay judges JUDr. PhDr. Jaroslav Jarabinský and Mgr. Kristián Kuko.