After Tuesday’s 14th extraordinary meeting of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, which is investigating possible political responsibility for impermissible interference in the work of the police and other competent authorities, Andrej Poglajen pointed out that the Commission’s chairman, Aleš Rezar, was dragging out the procedures.
The meeting, which was closed to the public, focused only on the organisation of the Commission’s work. However, before the meeting, opposition Members of Parliament had re-submitted a request for a hearing with the Prime Minister, Dr Robert Golob, which was first submitted on the 22nd of May 2023. “695 days have passed since then, and still no hearing has taken place,” said MP Andrej Poglajen of the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS), adding that this was a deliberate obstruction of the parliamentary inquiry.
At the end of January this year, the National Assembly adopted an interim report on the subject, after which it rejected two separate opinions or two separate reports by opposition MPs. In this report, which was adopted at a sitting of the National Assembly, the chairman of the commission and Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda) MP, Aleš Rezar, essentially exonerated Golob of all blame with regard to interference in the work of the police in arresting Russian spies. On the other hand, there is nothing in the report that exonerates Golob of any guilt as far as interference in the work of the police itself is concerned.
MP Poglajen recalled the controversial statement made by the Prime Minister in 2023, after the dismissal of Interior Minister Tatiana Bobnar, when she revealed that she had received a request from him to “clean up the police”, more specifically to “clean the Janšaists (supporters of Janez Janša) from the police”. According to the opposition, this statement indicates serious political interference in the work of autonomous bodies. “This segment of the Commission’s work has never been completed. This is a clear violation of the law and of the Rules of Procedure on Parliamentary Inquiries,” Poglajen warned, accusing the Commission’s chairman of being “unwilling to hold the hearing requested by at least one third of the Commission’s members, as clearly provided for in Article 12 of the Rules of Procedure.”
Poglajen added that the commission cannot fulfil its core mission – to establish the facts and possible political accountability. When asked by journalists about other Golob scandals, such as his free vacationing in Karigador, MP Poglajen replied briefly: “Scandals are a constant feature of Robert Golob’s mandate. We hope that this fiasco will end as soon as possible.”
Domen Mezeg
