The credibility and integrity of the judiciary are directly linked to the reputation of its representatives – judges

On November 28th, 2025, the Disciplinary Panel of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic, in its decision under Case No. 32D/3/2025, acquitted Judge JUDr. Michal Kubiš of the Bratislava IV City Court, pursuant to Section 34(2)(b) of the Disciplinary Code of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic, of the disciplinary motion filed by the Minister of Justice. According to the disciplinary panel, the act committed by the disciplinary charged judge does not constitute a disciplinary offense.

The Minister of Justice filed a motion to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Judge JUDr. Michal Kubiš for suspicion of committing a serious disciplinary offense pursuant to the provisions of Section 116(1)(a), (b) in conjunction with Section 116(2)(b) of the Act on Judges and Lay Judges. He allegedly committed the serious disciplinary offense by failing, as a judge in court proceedings, to notify the court president and the parties to the proceedings of facts that could establish grounds for his bias towards the legal representative of the plaintiff in the given case. According to the Minister of Justice, the judge thereby undermined trust in the independent, impartial, and fair decision-making of the courts, and proposed reducing his functional salary by 50% for a period of six months.

The Minister of Justice stated that the plaintiff’s legal representative and the disciplinary charged judge had studied in the same year and in the same study group at the Faculty of Law of Comenius University in Bratislava. Until the final conclusion of the court proceedings in question, the disciplinary charged judge did not notify the court president or the defendant of his relationship with the plaintiff’s legal representative, whereby, according to the Minister of Justice, he violated the obligation under Section 50(1) of the Civil Procedure Code. According to the Minister of Justice, although the disciplinary charged judge may have felt unbiased, the objective aspect is more important, as a judge must also appear unbiased and impartial in the eyes of the public.

The disciplinary charged judge explained that he had studied with the plaintiff’s legal representative 18 years ago, but since graduating in 2005, he had not been in any contact with him and did not follow his professional or private development. They have not contacted each other for more than 18 years, and even during their university studies, their relationship did not exceed the limits of normal contact between two students studying at the same university due to being placed in the same study group. Therefore, according to the disciplinary judge, there was no reason for him to request disqualification from the case due to his bias.

The Judicial Council of the Slovak Republic, which was requested by the disciplinary panel of the Supreme Administrative Court to issue an opinion, did not identify any ethical misconduct by the judge in the factual description of the act.

The fact that the judge and the plaintiff’s legal representative were classmates was not disputed in the disciplinary proceedings. What was disputed between the parties was the classification of the conduct of the charged judge, who, being aware of his “relationship with the plaintiff’s legal representative,” did not notify the court president of this fact.

According to the disciplinary panel, when assessing the impartiality of a judge, it is necessary to consider whether there are real objective circumstances that could lead to legitimate doubts that the judge approaches or could approach the case with a certain, not unbiased attitude. A judge should be disqualified when it is obvious that his relationship (connection) reaches such a character and intensity that he will not be able to decide “sine ira et studio”, i.e., independently and impartially. According to the disciplinary panel, a judge may be disqualified from hearing and deciding an assigned case only quite exceptionally and for truly serious reasons that obviously prevent him from deciding in accordance with the law objectively, impartially, and fairly due to his relationship to the case, to the parties, or to their representatives. Facts that a judge is obliged to notify to the court president pursuant to Section 50(1) of the Civil Procedure Code must be relevant and cannot involve just any relationship of the judge, whether to the case, the parties, or their representatives. Otherwise, the mere articulation of an appearance (of bias) would already raise doubts about the judge’s independence.

The disciplinary panel stated that the relationship of the charged judge to the plaintiff’s representative, under circumstances where they had not had any contact for 18 year and previously the quality of their relationship did not exceed the scope of casual encounters between two students, is not from any rational point of view a relationship that could be designated as the “judge’s relationship to the representative” within the meaning of Section 49(1) of the Civil Dispute Procedure Code. Furthermore, the disciplinary panel stated that if such a relationship were to be considered the “judge’s relationship to the representative,” the judge would have the same relationship to any of his classmates. In other words, the stated interpretation of the provisions of Section 49(1) of the Civil Dispute Procedure Code would lead to absurd situations where a judge would have to examine and notify his potential bias in relation to hundreds or even thousands of persons. Such an obviously rigid and even absurd approach to the interpretation of the provisions of Section 49(1) of the Civil Dispute Procedure Code also has the potential to paralyze the decision-making activities of judges, who would have to spend relevant time looking up information on the parties to the proceedings and their representatives. According to the disciplinary panel, the charged judge rightfully and reasonably relied on established case law, concluding that his relationship to the legal representative was not of such intensity that he would have to notify it, as such a relationship does not constitute a qualified relationship to the legal representative of a party to the proceedings.

According to the disciplinary panel, it is worth special mention that the party to the court proceedings in which, according to the Ministry of Justice, the charged judge was alleged to have committed the asserted serious disciplinary offense was the Ministry of the Interior of the Slovak Republic, i.e., a branch of the executive power. From this point of view, the initiation of disciplinary proceedings against a judge for his decision-making activities can be perceived as a “conflict of powers”, which, although permitted, regulated, and therefore anticipated by law, must at the same time be subject to constitutional limits. According to the disciplinary panel, the mere conduct of disciplinary proceedings can have, and often does have, a defamatory effect. Questioning the independence and impartiality of a judge can be assessed as the greatest reputational risk, as it is naturally associated with the assumption that the judge has betrayed his “most sacred” mission to decide cases impartially. The disciplinary panel adds that reputation (or renown in the sense of the sum of beliefs about the character, quality, and reliability of a judge) is one of the greatest values a judge possesses and builds over the long term. With a certain degree of expressiveness, a parallel can be drawn that ruining a judge’s reputation is like breaking a violinist’s fingers.

The disciplinary panel concludes in the judgment that the credibility, integrity, or good reputation of the judiciary is directly linked to the reputation of its representatives, i.e., judges. Just as a drop of oil can contaminate a body of water, so a single corrupt judge can thwart the efforts of hundreds of others. The good reputation of the judicial system is a prerequisite for its credibility, which is a state desired by society as a whole. Awareness of these considerations must then naturally lead to taking them into account and thus also to a certain restraint.

The decision of the disciplinary panel was adopted by a vote of 5:0.

The decision was made by the Panel No. 32D of the Supreme Administrative Court, composed of: President of the Panel JUDr. Michal Matulník, PhD., Judges Mgr. Kristína Babiaková, Mgr. Peter Mach, PhD. and lay judges JUDr. Viera Kováčiková and JUDr. Iveta Zelenayová.