In Slovenia, just like in the rest of the former Yugoslav republics, there was no lustration; the old networks are still predominant – not only in politics and the economy but also in the judiciary. The conservative Prime Minister Janez Janša is a victim of their machinations. In 1988, a military court sentenced him to 18 months in prison for his journalistic work, accusing him of “high treason” because he dared to criticise the Yugoslav People’s Army (YPA). In 2014, three weeks before the parliamentary elections, he was imprisoned for the second time as a politician.
Thirty years ago, Czechoslovakia faced international criticism for the first time since the fall of the communist regime. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) had accused the Czechoslovak parliament of violating the prohibition of discrimination in the workplace due to the so-called “lustration,” which came into force in 1991. All former employees of the State Security (the so-called StB) and members of the Communist Party were dismissed from executive positions. The ban applied to about 9,000 jobs in the state administration, the military and security services, state-owned companies and the media, universities and the judiciary.
Many countries already carried out lustration before joining the EU
Despite criticisms, Prague maintained the law even after the Czech Republic’s separation from Slovakia. The Czech acted faster, stricter and more consistently than their neighbours: Hungary implemented the relevant laws three years later, and Poland only did it in 1997. Effective lustration was not carried out in any of these countries. This also affected their judiciaries. The radicalism of the Czech people was mainly due to the fact that the communist regime in Czechoslovakia was much stricter than in Hungary or Poland.
When the Czech Republic joined the EU, there were very few judges and prosecutors who served the communist regime left. Further purges were no longer necessary. One of the consequences of this is that the EU does not condemn the Czech Republic today for not respecting the independence of the judiciary. During the 15 years that the Czech people spent in the “EU waiting room,” they were able to take all the measures they deemed necessary to drain the communist swamp on their own and without outside interference.
Slovenian judiciary is destroying the democrats
In Slovenia, just like in the rest of the former Yugoslav republics, there was no lustration; the old networks are still predominant – not only in politics and the economy but also in the judiciary. The conservative Prime Minister Janez Janša is a victim of their machinations. In 1988, a military court sentenced him to 18 months in prison for his journalistic work, accusing him of “high treason” because he dared to criticise the Yugoslav People’s Army (YPA). In 2014, three weeks before the parliamentary elections, he was imprisoned for the second time as a politician.
On the basis of allegations for which there was no evidence, politically motivated prosecutors and judges organised a trial against him that did not adhere to the rule of law. The judges found him guilty of accepting an offer of a bribe in an unknown amount – “at an unknown time, in an unknown place, and in an indefinite manner,” which was offered to him by a Finnish arms company, for the supply of armoured vehicles. In the end, Janša spent six months in prison. Red cabinets dominated the courts – all the way to the Supreme Court. The president, former communist Branko Masleša, publicly proclaimed Janša was guilty, even before the appellate proceedings, in which he himself participated as a judge. In June 2015, the Constitutional Court overturned the ruling. And as Prime Minister, Janša now has to listen to accusations about him trying to undermine the independence of the judiciary.
Demokracija
