The Speaker of the National Assembly, Urška Klakočar Zupančič, is doing everything in her power to prevent the establishment of a commission of inquiry to look into Prime Minister Golob’s business dealings from the time when he was still the head of the GEN-I energy company, as well as the financing of Golob’s Freedom Movement party (Gibanje Svoboda), and his current “side” dealings through his company Star Solar.
“The Speaker of the National Assembly, who considers herself the first protector of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia and the rule of law, continues to disregard and break the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly. On the 21st of August 2024, 30 members of the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) and New Slovenia (Nova Slovenija – NSi) parliamentary groups submitted a request to convene an extraordinary session with the item of adoption of the act on the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry. The Speaker of the National Assembly informed us that until the proponents of the act on the Commission of Inquiry have corrected the material, she will not convene an extraordinary session,” MP Jelka Godec, leader of the SDS party parliamentary group, recently wrote.
This means that the Freedom Movement party is trying to prevent the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry in every possible way. Firstly, by demanding a review of the request to order a commission of inquiry, as well as by implementing the amendment to the law on parliamentary inquiries, which would make the establishment of a commission of inquiry subject to the review of the Constitutional Court, should the request for this be made. However, as we have reported in the past, the Constitutional Court favours the political left because of some controversial appointments in the past.
As the leader of the SDS party parliamentary group pointed out, the conduct of the Speaker of the National Assembly is inconsistent with the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly. Namely, Article 85 of the Constitution states that “The National Assembly shall work in regular and extraordinary sessions. Regular and extraordinary sittings shall be convened by the Speaker of the National Assembly; an extraordinary sitting must be convened if at least a quarter of the members of the National Assembly or the President of the Republic so request.”
And Paragraph 58 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly states that “An extraordinary session of the National Assembly shall be convened by the Speaker of the National Assembly at the request of at least a quarter of the Members of the National Assembly or the President of the Republic, no later than 15 days after the request has been submitted.”
As can be seen from the convening notice of the Speaker of the National Assembly, on Friday, the 30th of August 2024, the meeting agenda will include only two items, namely a proposal for a recommendation to the Government on the effectiveness of the handling of the Roma issue and a proposal for a decision on the confirmation of the mandates of the alternate deputies Franc Francisco Estanislao (NSi) and Andrej Poglajen (SDS).
The Commission of Inquiry, once established, will investigate the alleged financial exhaustion of GEN-I, the operation of Star Solar, and the alleged illegal financing of the Freedom Movement party, as well as the financing of the party’s 2022 pre-election campaign.
“Unbalanced actions of Urška Klakočar Zupančič”
Despite clear legal provisions, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Klakočar Zupančič, failed to include an item requested by opposition MPs from the SDS and NSi parties, in the invitation to the upcoming meeting.
“The Speaker of the National Assembly is only allowing herself to engage in such actions because the Freedom Movement party has 40 MPs, as well as the humble MPs from the coalition Social Democrats party (Socialni demokrati – SD) and the Left party (Levica), who all support her arbitrary decisions in order to preserve their own seats. I would be interested to hear what the Secretary-General of the National Assembly and the Legislative and Legal Service have to say about this. How much longer do they plan on continuing to support the unbalanced actions of Urška Klakočar Zupančič, which are leading to the complete dismantling of the rule of law?” MP Jelka Godec wondered in her post.
Meanwhile, the President of the SDS party, Janez Janša, also commented on the matter, writing: “This conduct by the Speaker of the National Assembly is ripe for criminal charges. Sooner or later, this will be prosecuted.”
Ž. K.
