Did the head of the legal service in the municipality of Velenje, Suzana Žinić – a long-time colleague and a favourite of the current Minister of Justice, Andreja Katič, who appeared as a juror in the trial against Janez Janša in the Trenta affair – join the senate by chance or at the direction of the court? This is what the champion of the opposition, Janša, wanted to know in a recent poll on his X profile. As many as 92 percent of the respondents believe that she is not there by chance.
The leader of the largest opposition party, Janez Janša, posed a question on the X network about the senate member Suzana Žinić, who is one of the judge-jurors in the trial against Janša in the Trenta affair, for which the name Patria 2 has also caught on. The process began after almost 20 years, when the case is approaching the statute of limitations, but it also indicates the approaching early elections. Every repetition of such practices casts a bad light on the rule of law in our country and the appearance of the independence and impartiality of the courts.
On the 9th of July, when the trial was supposed to begin, there were complications regarding the appointment of all three members of the senate. The court proceedings were initially taken over by judge Marko Brišnik, who was expelled from the senate after the defence had succeeded some time ago with a request to exclude part of the evidence. According to the order, Mojca Turinek should have taken over the leadership of the senate, but she recused herself, so it was Cvetka Posilovič‘s turn.
From skipping judges to the “right” jurors
The remaining two jurors were selected after some strange skipping of certain judges, even though the rules of the court impose an alphabetical selection. This was, therefore, a case of unusual skipping of judges, which raises the most serious doubt, if not the very fact of the illegality of the composition of the senate. Especially since the people who make it up are actually people with a well-known political background: Andrej Volk and Suzana Žinić. Two decades ago, the former first ran for municipal councillor in Šoštanj on the list of the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia party (Liberalna demokracija Slovenije – LDS), which was a major political opponent of Janša, and he later ran on the list of the Our Country party (Naša dežela). Meanwhile, Žinić was employed as the head of the legal service at the Velenje Municipality at a time when the current Minister of Justice and a prominent member of the Social Democrats party (Socialni demokrati – SD), Andreja Katič, was leading the city administration there.
Žinić admitted at the trial that she knew Katič and that they were colleagues in the municipal administration in the municipality of Velenje. When Žinić came to the municipality, Katič was the director of the municipal administration, then later she became a minister and was not working at the municipality, and then she was an adviser to the mayor of the same municipality, until she became a minister again. She was also rumoured to have organized the celebration when Janez Janša went to prison in the Patria case, but she did not give a clear answer about this at the trial.
The continuation of the trial of Janez Janša and the co-accused in the Trenta case will take place on Thursday at 9 a.m.
C. Š.
