Judgements of lower courts can be appealed. Generally, there are two stages of appeal for criminal proceedings.
You can appeal a court’s decision or judgment if you do not agree with the way that the court has interpreted the facts or the law in your case. In addition, if you think that a lower court’s decision is unfair because some of your rights, as the accused, were violated in the proceedings, you must write that in your appeal. Read more about other ways to complain about a violation of your rights.
There is no automatic right to appeal in all cases and disputes. However, when the national law allows you to appeal a lower court’s decision, the court of appeal has to comply with all the requirements of a fair trial.
The majority of the decisions and judgments of a lower court can be appealed in a higher court: the court of appeal (odvolací súd in Slovak). In the review process, the court of appeal has the same power to consider the case as the lower court. This includes all disputes about the facts of your case and the correct application of law.
Generally, your rights and obligations in the court of appeal are the same as before a lower court, but depending on the nature of your appeal, some of your rights, such as the right to request an oral hearing and the right to be present at the hearing, may be more limited.
Every final decision and judgment of both the court of first instance as well as the court of appeal can be challenged further before the court of appellate review (dovolací súd in Slovak): the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic (Najvyšší súd Slovenskej republiky). This court has more limited powers to review your case and will only examine arguments about law regarding serious violations of the Code of Criminal Procedure or the Penal Code.
In Slovakia, the Ministry of Justice has general right to request an appellate review and may do it on motion of the defendant. The defendant and the public prosecutor may directly submit request of appellate review only regarding final decisions of the court of appeal.
The Supreme Court will only examine request on appellate review if:
- a court without jurisdiction decided in the matter
- a court decided in an illegal composition
- the right to a defence was violated in a significant manner
- the main trial or the public hearing was performed in the absence of the accused, although the statutory requirements were not met for such a case
- the matter was acted on or decided by a law enforcement authority, the judge or an associate, who was supposed to be excluded from the performance of the acts of the criminal proceedings
- the criminal prosecution was performed without the consent of the victim, although his/her consent is legally required
- the decision is based on evidence, which was not lawfully performed by a court
- the punishment was imposed outside the statutory stipulated criminal penalty or such type of punishment was imposed, which is not admissible by law for the heard criminal offence
- the decision is based on an incorrect legal assessment of the found act or on the incorrect application of other substantive provision; the correctness and completeness of the found act may however, not be examined or changed by the court of appellate review
- a protective measure was imposed, although the statutory requirements were not met for such action
- a criminal prosecution was conducted against the accused, despite its being inadmissible
- the court of appeal dismissed the appeal, although the statutory requirements were not met for such action, or it took the withdrawal of the appeal by the defence counsel into account, despite the fact the accused did not give their express consent for the withdrawal of such appeal
- prior to the submission of an indictment, the Attorney General revoked the final decision of the public prosecutor after the statutory deadline
- a life prison sentence was imposed upon the accused and the court decided that their conditional release from serving a prison sentence was not admissible
example The court of appeal review will not consider a claim that you were not at the crime scene during a theft; but it will examine complaint about unequal treatment when accepting the evidence of the prosecution and refusing to accept yours.
Even if the court of appeal has made a mistake in applying the law, this mistake has to be serious enough to have led to a potentially incorrect final decision.
Since the court of appellate review only deals with complaints about the application or violations of law, the requirements to access the Supreme Court, such as the quality of legal arguments on which an request for an appellate review is based, are stricter than in the court of appeal.