Can you imagine a Minister of Justice in a developed country of the European Union hugging the mayor of that country’s capital city, against whom a whole bunch of criminal proceedings are pending and about whom the public read wiretap transcripts (which were later destroyed) about how he gave a young mother an ultimatum that he will get her a job if she had sex with him? Such a minister in Germany, France or the Netherlands (so, the countries we consider the “core” countries of the EU) would resign immediately when such recordings were leaked to the public. And if he or she did not, he or she would probably be sacked by the Prime Minister. However, we have different rules here. In Slovenia, we have created our own local gangster Balkan country, where the Minister of Justice Dominika Švarc Pipan, after her embrace with the Ljubljana sheriff Zoran Janković, will be even more popular among her political peers, and probably also among the left-wing voters, who have long since said that they don’t care what kind of trouble Janković gets up to, as long as he is “theirs”.
It is also worth noting that at one of the pre-election stands in Grosuplje, Dominika Švarc Pipan refused to shake hands with her political opponent, the then-Prime Minister Janez Janša, explaining that for the first time in her life, she was refusing to shake hands with someone because other values were above etiquette, values that the Prime Minister was destroying with every breath he took. The electorate then “rewarded” her in the same way as in the previous elections – by not electing her to Parliament. However, due to Golob’s intervention, the eternal political “loser” then still became the Minister of Justice (many in the Social Democrats party (Socialni demokrati – SD) were quite bothered by this, as she had gained a rather unsavoury reputation even within her own ranks).
Now let us move forward a year, when Švarc Pipan – now the Minister of Justice – jumped into the arms of Zoran Janković, the Sheriff of Ljubljana, with great enthusiasm, like an excited young girl who had just met her favourite member of a popular boy pop group. Who is this morally superior lady, who is the head of Slovenian justice, jumping into the arms of?
Zoran Janković is the record holder in terms of the number of criminal charges
A man who holds the record for the highest number of criminal charges against any Slovenian official. A man against whom there are currently four active pre-trial proceedings and two active criminal proceedings (the Stožice case concerning fraud and the installation of a refrigeration plant).
He has already been through a whole bunch of criminal proceedings before, where the evidence has either disappeared or the judges have creatively ruled in his favour (the destruction of evidence in the pharmacist case, which led to legal experts on both the left and the right to say that what happened was just plain wrong).
The worst of the criminal proceedings in which the mayor is still involved is, of course, the one concerning the misuse of EU funds in the Stožice affair. Namely, eight years ago, the District Court in Ljubljana adopted a decision to investigate Zoran Janković on suspicion that, in his official capacity, in order to obtain an unlawful material benefit for another person, he had used his official position and crossed the boundaries of his official rights (the contract on the lease and management of the car parks) and obtained funds by doing so, by submitting false declarations and documents and thus misusing funds from budgets administered by the European Communities, while at the same time obtaining investment funds for another person without fulfilling the required conditions.
Zoran Janković – supporter of Balkan authoritarians
Mayor Jankovič makes no secret of his affinity for Balkan authoritarians such as Milorad Dodik and Aleksandar Vučić, probably because he regrets that he failed to become like them in 2013, when he did not get the necessary 46 votes to form a coalition in the National Assembly. He even went so far as to declare both of them simultaneously the best politicians in the Balkans. His diaspora in Ljubljana was delighted, while the leftists turned a blind eye to what he said. Dodik is the last powder keg in the Balkans, which Russia is using as a useful idiot against the Western countries. Such politicians are a model for ‘our Zoki’.
The Minister of Justice should resign
The Minister of Justice has spat in the face of the rule of law, and it is almost impossible for anyone to believe in the rule of law in Slovenia when the top brass of the executive in charge of justice embrace their political running mate, who is accused of serious (international) corruption. These are open proceedings. What judge or prosecutor will dare to poke a wasp’s nest when the mayor is so intimately connected with the executive branch of power that it looks as if they are one and the same, or even more – as if he is the boss of the coalition? This is no longer the rule of law – it is Russia under the Alps. There is a United Russia, and there is a United Slovenia, where the Slovenian Putin will be embraced by both the female judges and the female Justice Minister, with a long-haired Slovenian Medvedev for good measure.
On a purely personal level, it is hypocritical for the coalition and, in particular, the Minister, to promote militant feminist politics and, on the other hand, to fall into the arms of a man who was involved in the pharmacist affair. Yes, Janković was acquitted, just as Putin’s oligarchs are acquitted in Russia. But there is a deeper personal note here, too – the Justice Minister was certainly not born yesterday. She must have read the wiretaps, as we all have. She must have seen how slimy and despicable Janković was in the wiretaps, blackmailing a young, desperate mother into believing that the only way he could save her was if he could pleasure himself on her body. Feminism is, therefore, just a cover. In reality, female fans are falling into the arms of real Balkan “machos” who know how to “take things” for themselves. This is the picture of Slovenian politics. Russia is not that far away.
A photograph which, decades from now, will become a symbol of the moral decay of the Slovenian left.
Andrej Žitnik
