Chapter 13: Slovakia
(continued)
However, the period from 1995 to 1997 cannot be considered a period of positive development. The new draft of the Act on the Municipality System, prepared in 1997, aims to restrict the right of municipalities to adopt regulations independently from the state authorities. The amendment of the Building Act, adopted in 1997, drastically reduced opportunities of local governments in planning the territorial development (see the section on public participation in land-use planning).
One of the biggest problems has been the inability to enforce consideration of public comments submitted during the decisionmaking procedures (especially in EIA) as addressed widely in the description of public participation. The current model of "self-review" - i.e. only the ministry itself evaluates whether public comments have been considered or ignored - should be changed. Practical experiences proved that this system could lead to cases in which the whole sense of EIA is omitted. The current procedure should be revised, and a model should be established that will guarantee that substantial comments will not be disregarded.
Also, the tradition of administrative proceedings maintaining a non-public character should be seriously discussed. This applies both to the access to information as well as public participation in this procedure. Administrative decisionmaking related to environmental issues often affects many more individuals and organizations than those who can be parties to the proceeding. As a minimum, Slovak law should provide environmental NGOs with the possibility to gain administrative standing in the procedure as is the case in the other countries of the CEE region. Defining criteria for such participation will be not be a problem because one can consider the experiences of the other countries (Czech Republic, etc.), where NGO participation in administrative procedure has worked for five years or longer.
Unfortunately, public administrators do not view the openness of the administrative proceedings as necessary, nor is openness a trend here. In fact, the opposite is true because even the new law drafts, including the draft law on Access to Environmental Information, do not challenge the tradition of non-public proceedings. Opening administrative activity to the public should become one of the priorities for future discussions concerning public participation. The access to information law could be a great opportunity to open this discussion because it is difficult to oppose the basic principle that citizens have a right to know as much as possible about proposed activity that could endanger their environment.
Concerning the independence of judges, several attempts to affect the independence of judges have occurred, and some of the constitutional court decisions have been ignored by the remaining powers in the state (i.e. parliament and the executive branches). Therefore, the priority for the future is to change these trends and to work on strengthening the powers of the local governments, increasing of independence of judges and promoting the rule of law as such.
