We no longer go to the courts for justice, but only for judgment

Just a few years ago, it was a matter of course to say that the court is the place where one goes for justice. Today, another, far more sobering – and disturbing – phrase is being heard more and more often: you go to court for a verdict. Not necessarily for justice, but for decision. The formal outcome of a process that may or may not have much to do with justice.

This shift is not accidental. It is the result of the gradual erosion of the basic principles on which the rule of law rests. This is not about individual excesses or individual failures. The problem is deeper: in some cases, even the highest courts seem to be beginning to resign themselves to the basic procedural standards that should be taken for granted.

The fundamental rights of a party to proceedings – the right to be heard, the right to comment on decisive circumstances, the right to an impartial judge – are not academic decorations of the legal order. They are safeguards against arbitrariness. As soon as they start to be relativized, space opens up for decision-making, which although formally corresponds to the law, but materially moves away from justice.

It is particularly alarming when courts make fundamental procedural conclusions without verifying basic factual assumptions. A typical example is the formalistic rejection of a submission as late, without even establishing whether the conditions from which the law derives this lateness have been met. Such a course of action is not an expression of legal certainty - it is a denial of it. The law is not applied here, but is reduced to a technical obstacle.

This formalism is all the more dangerous because it masquerades as professionalism. In reality, however, this is a resignation to the essence of judicial work. A judge is not an operator of process forms. It is the guarantor of a fair trial. If he settles for a superficial assessment and ignores the decisive claims of the participant, he ceases to fulfill this role.

Another warning sign is the weakening of the court's duty to instruct. At the same time, this is not an "extra service", but a basic tool to ensure the equality of participants. If the court does not instruct the participant about his rights and then reprimands him for not exercising them, this is not procedural discipline, but systemic injustice.

Equally problematic is the lack of justification for decisions. A decision that doesn't deal with key arguments isn't just shoddy - it's dangerous. Without proper justification, it is not possible to verify whether the court decided on the basis of law or on the basis of arbitrariness. And this is where trust in justice breaks down.

At the same time, free will does not arise in leaps and bounds. It is not created by one bad decision. It occurs gradually – as minor errors become tolerated, as procedural rules begin to be seen as a bothersome formality, and as the emphasis shifts from process quality to speed and "getting things done." The result is a judiciary that produces decisions, but loses the ability to convince that it makes decisions fairly.

And this is where we come back to that troubling phrase: today, people often go to court not for justice, but for judgment. Judgment as an administrative output, not as the result of a fair process. A judgment that closes the dispute but does not resolve the sense of wrong. A judgment that passes formally but fails materially.

This trend is all the more serious because it can become invisible. Justice will get used to him. The participants in the proceedings resign. And the public will stop expecting the courts to be the guarantor of justice. At such a moment, it is no longer just about the quality of individual decisions, but about the very essence of the rule of law.

So the question is not whether the courts are able to issue a decision. They certainly are. The question is: are they still capable of making decisions that arise from a process consistent with basic principles of justice?

If the answer to this question becomes uncertain, it is not a problem for individual judges. This is a system problem. And this can no longer be solved by individual remedies, but only by returning to what should be self-evident: that law is not a technique, but a service of justice.

Source:

1. Constitutional Court (2014)Finding sp. stamp III. ÚS 1836/13 of 27 February 2014. Collection of findings and resolutions of the ÚS, Vol. 72, No. 24/2014.
→ Non-reviewability of the decision as a violation of the right to a fair trial.

2. Constitutional Court (1997)Finding sp. stamp III. ÚS 94/97. Collection of findings and resolutions of the ÚS, vol. 8.
→ The duty of courts to properly justify decisions as a basic condition for the exclusion of arbitrariness.

3. The Constitutional Court (2005)Finding sp. stamp IV. ÚS 718/05.