The court case of RTV Slovenia journalists Eugenija Carl and Mojca Pašek Šetinc against Prime Minister Janez Janša, the subject of which is the content of the Prime Minister’s tweet, continued on Tuesday. In this article, we will present to you two foreign experts who were introduced by Siol in one of its articles last year. These experts are Gavin Phillipson, a professor at the Bristol University of Law that mainly deals with human rights, and RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor of constitutional and media law and press freedom at the University of Utah, who also has editorial and journalistic experience.
Both experts agreed that a tweet with such content would definitely receive a lot of media coverage. Such a statement can also harm the politician in the long run, but such a statement is not a criminal act if it was not a literal accusation of prostitution but a metaphor. Anyone can initiate legal proceedings against us if he or she believes we have offended his or her honour.
Assuming readers would not take the tweet as a literal accusation of prostitution and pimping, but as a metaphor, courts should quickly dismiss such a lawsuit, RonNell Andersen Jones told the media outlet Siol. The moderator of the conference and Slovenian professor of constitutional law at the Faculty of Law in Maribor, Dr Jurij Toplak, also spoke on the matter, adding that the same answer would be given by other experts, but no one spoke during their debates.
The attackers who took on the role of the victims
Both RTV Slovenia journalists, Eugenia Carl and Mojca Pašek Šetinc, have repeatedly manipulatively, ideologically hostilely and also falsely reported on Janez Janša and the SDS party in the past. Janša also pointed this out at one of the previous trials, adding that he can also support his claims with concrete evidence. In recent days, Eugenia Carl also publicly insulted her journalistic colleague Nejc Krevs because he dared to publicly speak about the censorship of the Israeli ambassador to Slovenia. Carl also did not apologise to MP Branko Simonovič when she failed to provide proof for her allegations that the DeSUS MP had a fake diploma. Both also frequently express their opinions on social media in a very feisty style and not very culturally – Carl in particular. Recently, journalist Vanja Kovač made a documentary promoting the illegal border crossings in the former Yugoslavia. However, no apology came from the editor-in-chief of the information programme, Manica Ambrožič.
Both Carl and Pašek have been turning this case into a real circus for the last five years, simply because of a few sarcastic words in a tweet. By doing so, they are only proving that, as journalists, they are not willing to accept criticism of their work, which has been proven to be biased and inconsistent with the journalistic standards, as they are often open in showing their political support. The author of these lines is also often the target of hostile messages, which, although not pleasant, I take as an integral part of my work. But regardless of whether the person writing the messages is just an online troll or a real person, I am glad that everyone can express their free opinion. That is the point. Only the journalistic prima donnas from the national television act insulted in defence of low attacks, while at the same time, they are trying to convince the public and the court of the inviolability of their work.
Luka Perš
