ELECTION AND STATUS OF JUDGES

Following the constitutional and legal amendments in the framework of the justice reform of 2016, the judges of the Supreme Court are appointed by the President of the Republic, with the proposal of the High Judicial Council for a 9-year term of office without the right to re-appointment.

The President of the Republic, within 10 days from the date of the decision of the High Judicial Council, appoints the Supreme Court judge, unless the President finds that the candidate does not meet the eligibility criteria or eligibility conditions, according to law.

A Supreme Court judge is elected amongst judges with at least 13 years of experience in exercising their profession. One-fifth of the judges in this court are selected from prominent jurists with no less than 15 years of experience as lawyer, law professor or lecturer, senior lawyer in public administration or other areas of law. This approach aims to detach the involvement of politics from the appointment processes of high court judges, turning this Court into a career court, and also guarantees the preservation of independence and the quality improvement of the composition of the judiciary, based only on merits, professional and personal ethics of its members.

According to this standard, one of the innovations of the 2016 justice reform was the possibility for three judges of the Constitutional Court to be elected by the Supreme Court, which will be of use to mixing the experience of judges with other law practitioners