“Given that in your reply to our letter, you wrote that you cannot interfere in Slovenian legal matters, while at the same time, you seem to be very committed to getting the court to take a decision that will suit the left-wing political pole, we have to say that you are using double standards and that you are clearly guided by hypocrisy in your work,” wrote Jože Biščak and Vinko Vasle in a new letter to Věra Jourová, Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Values and Transparency.
We are publishing their letter in its entirety below:
“Dear Věra Jourová, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Values,
we cannot help but write to you again. And it is clear that this will not be the last time. So, we will be brief.
We have to admit that we are very disappointed by your visit to Ljubljana. Not because Slovenia, as a beautiful small country, does not deserve visits from such influential and eminent people as you, but because you met with the President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, Mattej Accetto. Given that you have interfered with and commented on the Slovenian media in the past and have been concerned about their fate, we see this meeting as unacceptable pressure on the highest instance of the Slovenian legal system.
We would like to remind you that in January, you responded to our letter written on the 19th of November 2022 through Mr Audrius Perkauskas. You wrote the following:
“In this respect, we would like to point out that the European Commission does not generally comment on specific measures taken by Member States which fall entirely within their sovereign competence, such as parliamentary inquiries, and that it has no general powers to intervene in legal disputes which should be settled by national courts.”
Which means that you do not interfere in legal disputes that are within the competence of nation states. Right, we respect that. And although you claim that you did not discuss Radio-Television Slovenia with the President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia (we admit that we do not believe you), you did not respect the principle of “the appearance of impartiality” by visiting the Court. What is more, you have prejudged the final decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, because your statement (that the decision will show how RTV will develop in the future), which is actually the vocabulary of left-wing political activists, cannot be understood in any other way than that you expect the Court’s decision to be in favour of the government of Robert Golob.
Given that in your reply to our letter, you wrote that you cannot interfere in Slovenian legal matters, while at the same time, you seem to be very committed to getting the court to take a decision that will suit the left-wing political pole, we have to say that you are using double standards and that you are clearly guided by hypocrisy in your work.
With respectful and kind greetings,
Jože Biščak, President of the Slovenian Association of Patriotic Journalists and Publicists
Vinko Vasle, columnist and former director of the national radio (RTV Slovenia)
Ljubljana, the 4th of March 2023″
