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Prior to the introduction of the new procedures, candidates were only selected on the basis of an interview with a hiring committee. According to the new HJPC procedures, candidates also have to take a written exam or have their work results be assessed.
“According to the new procedures, the total sum of the evaluation points will consist of an evaluation of the expertise of the candidates and an assessment based on a structured interview. 80 percent of the points will be given for the expertise of the candidates, and 20 percent will be based on the interview assessment. Therefore criteria determined on the basis of totally objective indicators will make up the biggest percentage of the evaluation points,” the HJPC told BIRN.
The HJPC has been criticized a number of times in the past for selecting certain candidates for positions at courts and prosecutions. Some members of the judicial community have said that the candidate selection process is problematic.
Prior to the new procedures, HJPC hiring committees took the legal experience, work results and other legal criteria of candidates into account. However, the final evaluation of the candidates didn’t indicate the number of points given for each criteria or how the points were calculated into the final sum.
The HJPC told BIRN that in the past, individual evaluations and ratings given by the hiring committees could only be figured out on the basis of their written comments.
The HPJC says the new evaluation procedures reduce the influence of the subjective impressions of committee members in the hiring process.
“Criteria such as communication skills and their ability to introduce themselves, which are determined on the basis of the subjective impressions of committee members, make up a very small portion of the total sum of evaluation points, so they can only slightly influence the final evaluation rating, i.e. the total number of points,” the HJPC says.
The HJPC says the new procedures have also made the interview process more objective.
“Criteria such as legal analysis and the ability to perform a judicial function in an unbiased, responsible and independent manner, are determined on the basis of questions selected from a pool of examination questions right before the interview itself. This means that committee members don’t know the interview questions in advance. Questions are selected from the pool randomly and have anticipated answers,” says the HJPC.
