Through the Dnevnik newspaper, the left-wing political structures are offering the Secretary-General of the Constitutional Court, Sebastian Nerad, Ph.D, to President Borut Pahor as a candidate for the position of Constitutional judge. However, during the latest affair of the Constitutional Court, in the case of the Constitutional judges Rok Čeferin and Marijan Pavčnik, one of the central roles was played by Nerad. As Požareport reports, in the past, the current Secretary-General of the Constitutional Court, who was the teaching assistant to Franc Grad, Ph.D. at the time, participated in the signing of a controversial legal opinion, because of which the current Prime Minister Janez Janša’s term in parliament was illegally revoked. Nerad also misled the public in the case of violations by the Constitutional Court judge Rok Čeferin. As professor Jurij Toplak explained, the Constitutional Court is now five years behind when it comes to resolving cases, and chaos is growing in all other organisational areas, as well as in substantive decision-making.
President of the Republic Borut Pahor is currently engaged in new coordination with the parliamentary groups for the vacant post of Constitutional judge. So far, Andraž Teršek and Anže Erbežnik have tried to get the position but were unsuccessful. The circles of the transitional left are already offering Sebastian Nerad, the current Secretary-General of the Constitutional Court. “In legal circles, it has often been heard that Nerad is undoubtedly an expert in constitutional law, but politically he is not placed on the left, and much less on the right,” Dnevnik wrote, for which we all know to which side it belongs.
In the future, such media offers will probably be even more common. But first things first. The experts know that this is another candidate who fits into the mould of judges with the views to which the current majority of judges belong, which turned out to be the worst majority so far, and the criticism from professional publications is ongoing. In the latest affair of the Constitutional judge Rok Čeferin, a possible new candidate for the Constitutional judge played a key role in concealing information from the journalists, as he deliberately hid both the case of non-exclusion of judge Čeferin, as well as judge Marijan Pavčnik.
Chaos in the Constitutional Court is growing
Professor of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law in Maribor, Jurij Toplak, Ph.D., is also not pleased with the work of the Secretary-General Nerad. “Their backlog is getting longer, the judges do not know what cases they are judging in, and the Secretary-General of the Court, Sebastian Nerad, is misleading the journalists, important items are missing from the agendas; the information commissioner has had to annul the decisions of the Constitutional Court,” he was critical.
The Čeferin affair was first announced by an anonymous Twitter user with the username Constitutional Court fan Slovenia, which wrote that a crisis meeting was held at the Constitutional Court, where Čeferin’s violation was discovered. “A fatal violation that should cost a judge his position. Two judges want to illegally subsequently change the verdict and keep the whole thing a secret. Three of them want him to resign. Panic,” the unknown insider described what is happening in the Constitutional Court. This was posted on the 9th of February 2021. Less than a month later, Bojan Požar proved with arguments that Čeferin really did it. The mysterious profile reappeared, writing that after the affair had been revealed, President Knez wanted to get rid of Secretary-General Nerad because of his mistakes and lies. As the anonymous user also revealed, Knez did not dare to let him go precisely because of Nerad’s good relations with Dnevnik.
The bizarre affair directed by Nerad was also connected with the anonymous profile. Namely, Nerad advocated for and publicly announced in Dnevnik that the Constitutional Court had asked Twitter to remove the profile, as it was causing confusion. However, Nerad was unsuccessful in his endeavour. The mysterious whistleblower continues to provide insider information about the Constitutional Court. In the past, Nerad was also a teaching assistant to Professor Franc Grad at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana. He helped him prepare his legal opinion in which Grad agreed with the 2014 decision to illegally take away the current Prime Minister’s parliamentary mandate.
Pretender of the left-wing network mislead and hid the truth from the journalists in the affair of the Constitutional judge Rok Čeferin!
Based on the information on Twitter and rumours from the legal circles, some journalists asked Nerad some time ago if the information about the violations of the Constitutional judge Rok Čeferin were true. He replied that the information about Čeferin was not true and rejected all hints that Čeferin had decided in the case of Peter Kodrič, related to his previous decision as a member of the Bar Association. Nerad further claimed that Čeferin had recently informed the judges that some time ago, he had mistakenly participated in a case from which he should have been excluded for other reasons. After the mistake was made, he asked his colleagues at the Constitutional Court to decide again in the case in question, however, the Constitutional Court has not yet decided what it will do, Nerad said.
But as it turned out, that was a lied. Peter Kodrič’s case has now ended up at the European Court of Human Rights. Another interesting thing to point out is that Marko Bošnjak, a former influential lawyer from the Čeferin law firm, holds the position of a judge at the European Court of Human Rights. We can only summarise the words of the constitutional lawyer Jurij Toplak, who said that a judge who does not read files should not even judge. “It is frightening, however, that this is the second time that a similar violation has occurred in recent months. Neither the three judges nor the experts noticed that Čeferin was judging in a case about his own decision from the past,” Toplak revealed. The same thing happened in the case of the Constitutional Court judge Pavčnik, as the expert associates and the Secretary-General Nerad were once again negligent in their work. Therefore, we can only add the words of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anže Logar, Ph.D., at the end, who said that mistakes cannot happen at the Constitutional Court. “Period. They are deciding on justice at the highest, constitutional level!” he added.
Luka Perš
