In October 2015 Washington and Lee law professor Jim Moliterno spent two weeks in Slovakia working on judicial ethics reform, conducting workshops, meeting with lawyers, and law schools. During this trip Professor Moliterno was interviewed by a Slovak journalist, Zuzana Petková, regarding controversial aspects of the Slovak judiciary and higher education system. In the article that was published last week, the headline reads: “Slovakia is Wasting Some of Its Best and Brightest.”
One of the several themes in the article is Professor Moliterno’s assertion that too many excellent judicial and academic candidates are denied permanent positions in favor of those with family connections to current judges and professors. In his opinion, which is based on his three years of work in Slovakia on legal ethics, the country is losing its best people who could make important contributions to the life of the country and its prosperity in favor of a system that relies on nepotism and favor-trading in the selection process for judicial and academic positions.
