In May this year, Member of the European Parliament Dr Milan Zver (SDS/EPP) filed a lawsuit against the European Commission before the EU General Court because the Commission refused to disclose internal documents about the mission of the Vice-President of the European Commission, Věra Jourová, to Slovenia, where it is suspected that Jourová influenced the Constitutional Court’s decision on the constitutionality of the Radio-Television Slovenia Act. The case has now been formally assigned to a Chamber of the Court, composed of three judges (J. Svenningsen, J. Martín y Pérez de Nanclares, M. Stancu) and the Judge-Rapporteur (J. Martín y Pérez de Nanclares). The proceedings have therefore officially started.
Commissioner Věra Jourová‘s visit to the Constitutional Court took place only ten days after the Constitutional Court’s decision to temporarily suspend the implementation of the amendment to the Radio-Television Slovenia Act.
But soon after the visit, the Constitutional Court “miraculously” changed its mind, with two Constitutional Court judges completely changing their minds, one of whom was Matej Accetto, who met with Jourová. The Radio-Television Slovenia Act, which was later adopted as a result of the Constitutional Court’s decision, pushed the public media into the arms of the far left, which controls all Slovenian social subsystems. Jourová’s visit was highly suspicious, as it coincided, by a strange coincidence, with a change of opinion by the judges, and the suspicions of interference by the European Commissioner in Slovenia’s internal affairs were deepened by the censored documents delivered by the European Commission to MEP Zver.
Zver decided to take legal action after political and administrative channels failed to produce results.
The documents are still censored today
What is most problematic about the whole affair is that part of the documentation about the visit, which MEP Zver managed to obtain after lengthy efforts, is still blacked out to this day without any real explanation, which is extremely suspicious. The lawsuit is therefore now going to formal proceedings.
Zver expressed the hope that the European Court would rule on the case as soon as possible. “Because this is a precedent-setting case. We are not only trying to prove some fault or violation of general principles of administrative procedure or violation of substantive rules of European Union law, but also the abuse of power that has taken place in this case and the impermissible intervention of one of the senior officials of the European executive in a Member State, and this in a field in which the Member State is fully sovereign,” he explained.
“The moment an institution loses the trust of the public, it falls into crisis and can also fall apart, which is why I think it is important that we expose such wrongdoings, such mistakes, as what happened with the intervention of Věra Jourová in the Slovenian political and legal space,” he said at a press conference in May.
What are they trying to achieve with the lawsuit?
The lawsuit accuses Jourová of impermissible interference in Slovenia’s internal affairs and demands that the Commission provide all of the documentation on the visit, including electronic communications between the European Commission and the Slovenian government and other actors. MEP Zver believes that it is already clear from the documentation obtained that violations have taken place, and the purpose of the lawsuit is also to ensure, by means of the verdict, that such cases do not become a permanent practice in the European Union.
The lawsuit was drafted by Miha Pogačnik, a prominent international lawyer and legal expert in international relations, while Janez Stušek will be the official representative of the case before the court.
I. K.
