Thursday’s extraordinary session of the Committee on Justice of the National Assembly will undoubtedly remain in many people’s memories for a long time to come. It was the first time in history that members of the coalition had taken the floor from a Member of Parliament by vote. There were also numerous interruptions of Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) MPs’ debates by Committee Chair and Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda) MP Lena Grgurevič.
“The Freedom Movement regime in all its glory: I have just been deprived of the floor by MPs of the Freedom Movement and MPs of the Left party (Levica), including the Speaker of the National Assembly, Klakočar Zupančič, because I quoted the decisions of the Supreme Court of Justice which overturned all the Patria judgments and started reading Article 288 of the Criminal Code, which speaks of a perjury trial.” SDS MP Zvone Černač was critical on the social network X after being deprived of the floor.
We turned to long-serving MP and former SDS Vice-President Jože Tanko for a comment on the conduct of Thursday’s meeting of the Justice Committee. “Practically none of us on our side who were debating could finish a sentence. She was constantly interrupting, commenting, and this is not according to the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly, because we were not talking about anything that was not on the agenda. We did not disrupt the sitting, and these reprimands do not hold up because they are not related to anything,” he explained in his introduction.
While he said that everyone was the target of these interventions in the debates, he was disturbed that “on the other hand, not a single person was interfered with, even though they were discussing more broadly, things that were not on the agenda, and so on”. “But we were talking about the substance,
While he said that everyone was the target of these interventions in the debates, he was quite bothered that “on one side, not a single person was interfered with, even though they were discussing broader issues, things that were not on the agenda and so on”. “We were talking about the substance, but she kept commenting on something and stumbling over our discussion points, which were very well argued,” he said critically, adding that they had not received any answers to the points raised. “The judiciary said their piece and walked away. Nobody stood by to hear or comment on anything we said. So, there was a farce about it.”
Intervene when threats are made
The SDS MP went on to say that he had chaired committee meetings in the past and had also given warnings and taken the floor from certain MPs. But only in cases where there were excesses – so verbal attacks, threats and so on. “In such cases, you are obliged to react when you are chairing the meeting, but not in the case of quite ordinary discussions related to their request,” he explained, adding that it was undoubtedly necessary to distinguish when someone intervenes. “You intervene in the case of threats, but not in a purely ordinary debate when you argue with documents, by quoting laws, quoting the Constitution, quoting passages from the text that they have written. That is not the way to do it”, he was clear.
As some, including the Chairwoman of the committee, seemed to have been bothered by the photographs that opposition leader Janez Janša had shown during the meeting, Tanko commented that this was clearly not something that was wanted, because these are documents, evidence that show the duplicity that was going on. “We were proving it with tables, pictures, videos, statements, quotes from statements, and this was obviously not in the context of their topic, their agenda item.”
Referring to the accusations of “you are a liar”, “you are lying” that could be heard during the session, Tanko said, “We were all liars. Whoever of us was speaking was a liar.” These, he said, were accusations based on nothing. “But no one has commented on what we have said, and that is not true.”
“If you show a picture from the protests, if you show a picture of judges who were at these celebrations of one of the political parties, and then the same judges are judging, then they are not independent, they are dependent. When you prove it, you show it, it is a lie. It is interesting that the Minister has not commented on this, but she is a representative of the Social Democrats party (Socialni Demokrati – SD). Grgurevič, on the other hand, called it a lie.” Referring to the fact that judges can be members of parties, Tanko recalled that it was interesting how it was a problem when a judge from Celje once participated in the writing of the SDS party programme. When this came to light, she was asked to step down from the expert council. “On the other hand, you have the case of Judge Accetto, who wrote the Modern Centre Party (Stranka modernega centra) programme, and is now a constitutional judge.” Although the latter was not pointed out because they failed to get there, the MP said that there is a problem when such things are pointed out. “For us, it is a problem, but for others, it is a normal situation.”
Ž. N.
