The article discusses the development in the administration of the Slovak judiciary since the separation of Czechoslovakia and the impact of the empowerment of the judicial self-governance on the functioning of the judicial system. After independence, the administration of the judiciary initially rested in the hands of the executive. In 2002, Slovakia created its Judicial Council and transferred a considerable amount of powers on it, especially related to judicial careers. It was expected that this would de-politicize the judicial system. However, a high level of autonomy of the judiciary chiefly led to the empowerment of judicial elites. This reduced the democratic accountability of the judiciary, encapsulating it from society and enabling it to promote its own interests. Selection processes have often been used to fill judicial ranks with judges with close ties to the system. Accountability mechanisms such as promotions, disciplinary procedures or remuneration schemes were used to reward allies of those on the top of the hierarchy and to punish their critics. Still, adherence to EU-backed standards on the administration of the judiciary may have increased the legitimacy of the judiciary, while concentrating decision-making in one body enhanced transparency, which was furthered due to low public confidence resulting in unprecedented levels of information available about the Slovak judicial system. All in all, the Slovak example displays the dangers of establishing judicial self-governance in countries where an internal ethical culture and a strong sense of judicial duty are still lacking.

The rise of abusive constitutionalism in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has hit the domestic judiciaries particularly hard. Viktor Orbán expanded the size of the Constitutional Court and then packed it, made sure that he can install a new president of the Constitutional Court, ousted the Supreme Court president through a constitutional amendment, disempowered the existing judicial council and created the new institution with power over ordinary judicial appointments. Jaroslav Kaczyński followed the same playbook in Poland. While most scholars have focused primarily on effects of abusive constitutionalism upon the constitutional courts, we argue that the keys to the longterm control of the judiciary are presidents of ordinary courts and judicial councils. The dismissal of the Hungarian Supreme Court President is a perfect example of this logic-by this move Orbán got rid of the most important court president in the country, the head of the Hungarian judicial council and his most vocal critic. Yet, András Baka lodged an application to the ECtHR and won. This article analyses the Grand Chamber judgment in Baka v. Hungary, its implication for the rule of law, and the limits of what the ECtHR can achieve against abusive constitutionalism. It concludes that the Grand Chamber failed on all key fronts. It overlooked the main structural problem behind Mr. Baka's dismissal (the broad powers of court presidents in CEE), it has blurred the Convention's understanding of the concept of the rule of law, and it failed in delivering a persuasive judgment firmly based on the existing ECtHR's case law .

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The aim of this article is to introduce a novel view on how to evaluate the share of power held by judges in judicial governance. Its contribution to court administration and the regulation of judges is three-fold. First, it provides a novel empirically tested conceptualization of judicial governance that includes 60 competences grouped into eight dimensions (ranging from selection and education of judges to case allocation and publication of judicial decisions). Second, it proposes a new Judicial Self-Governance (JSG) Index that measures how much power domestic judges hold in these eight dimensions of judicial governance. Third, by applying the JSG Index to the longitudinal data for Germany, Italy, Czechia, and Slovakia this article demonstrates that the Judicial Council model is not the only institutional model of judicial governance leading to the empowerment of judges. This means that judges can hold many powers without the existence of judicial councils and even in the Ministry of Justice model.