The judiciary likes to present itself as independent and free from any outside interests – regardless of trials that had elements of political prosecution, or of public displays of judges with totalitarian symbols at political party meetings. What is more, such judges are also given special awards to confirm their “independent” stance.
Something exactly like this occurred at the beginning of last month at the so-called “Days of the Judiciary”. The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Senior Judge Slavko Gazvoda. Our readers will probably recognise him as the judge who took part in the Social Democrats’ (Socialni demokrati – SD) party meeting wearing a T-shirt with a red star on it.
On the 4th of November, the awards were presented to meritorious judges and civil servants by the President of the Supreme Court, Miodrag Đorđević. According to a press release, the awards were given to those “who have left a mark with their work and contributed with their example to the strengthening of public confidence in the work of the judiciary”.
The statement did not explain how the individual recipients’ work contributed to strengthening the confidence in the judiciary. Judge Gazvoda has in the past been photographed at a Social Democrats party meeting wearing the red star. The picture also shows the party’s former President and current Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Tanja Fajon, and former MEP of the same party, Milan Brglez. The judge’s presence at the meeting, however, had the opposite effect from what he was recently awarded for. The picture further reinforced the belief that the Slovenian judiciary is anything but free from political interests. Not only that, but we have also reported in the past that the judge in question has signed search warrants for the homes of active politicians.
And, as a point of interest, the opening speech at the award event was given by the Minister of Justice (also from the SD party), Andreja Katič, and was also attended by Lena Grgurevič, a member of the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje Svoboda). The latter was the main protagonist of a recent extraordinary meeting of the Committee on Justice of the National Assembly, where she publicly insulted opposition representatives in a degraded debate, and at one point, the coalition even adopted a decision to silence the opposition MP Zvone Černač.
And as an additional interesting fact, in addition to criticism of biased behaviour, the Slovenian judiciary also faces criticism for slow work very often. This criticism was also voiced by the President of the Supreme Court, Miodrag Đorđević. He said that it was difficult for him to accept “the mantra of increasingly difficult and (increasingly) complex cases, when it is known that we have, as far as possible, relieved judges of non-judicial work.”
Ž. K.
