Law or justice

摘要

An independent judiciary is won-derful in a young democracy if you reform it first and make it impregnable later. But it can be awkward if done the other way round. Slovakia's centre-right government, elected with high hopes in June, is in trouble over this. The prime minister, Iveta Radicova, has threatened to resign after two failed bids to vote in a new prosecutor-general in place of the incumbent, Dobroslav Trnka. She argues that he has been too feeble on cases involving dodgy politicians, business tycoons and privatisations. Her coalition partners agree. But her own party, the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (sdku), has proposed its own candidate.