Slovakia Before the European Court of Human Rights in Recent Years – an Upcoming Fair Trial Problem?

Abstract

The paper aims to clarify whether the recent applications made against Slovakia and communicated by the European Court of Human Rights to the government for observations disclose presence of increasing fair trial issues for the country. More specifically, the paper focuses on whether applications alleging deficiencies in the fairness of criminal proceedings in Slovakia have recently gained traction. The paper contributes to the debate by performing a quantitative analysis of applications communicated to the government of Slovakia from 2019 to 2023, considering the proportion of criminal proceedings-related applications in relation to the overall amount of applications communicated. It shows that as the overall amount of communicated cases declined between 2019 and 2021, the issues associated with criminal proceedings remained consistent in absolute terms, but gained traction in relative numbers. Moreover, in 2023, when the overall amount of cases communicated is again on the rise, the issues of fair trial in criminal proceedings are similarly on the rise. Finally, the paper seeks to identify the most common topics of interest to the European Court of Human Rights, and discuss the potential implications arising for Slovakia.