Police detectives of the National Bureau of Investigation (NPU) have recently started to look into the Ministry of Justice. They suspect that the Ministry has grossly overpaid for a building on Litijska Street in Ljubljana. The Ministry paid 7.7 million euros for the building, while the previous owner paid 6 million euros less.
On top of that, according to media reports, the Ministry did not commission its own appraiser for the building, but trusted the valuation of the buyer’s appraiser, Sebastjan Vežnaver. The National Bureau of Investigation was scarce with information, and the police only said that the Bureau is currently verifying information regarding alleged irregularities in the purchase of the property.
The Minister of Justice promised full cooperation, saying: “I would like to stress that the Ministry will provide the National Bureau of Investigation with all the requested documentation in accordance with their request. We will also cooperate fully with the Bureau, as it is in all our interests and mine personally that the facts are investigated and clarified as soon as possible,” Minister Dominika Švarc Pipan wrote.
The Minister also said that if irregularities were found in the appraisal, which was the basis for the purchase contract, the Ministry would immediately initiate proceedings to declare the contract null and void and take all other appropriate measures. The Minister added that the Ministry had acted in good faith, the Slovenian Press Agency reports.
However, not everyone is convinced that this is the case.
Janša: The rule of law or the rule of the “right” people?
The case is reminiscent of the “Trenta” case, but only at first glance. The leader of the opposition, Janez Janša, compared the two cases on the social network X. We are publishing his response in its entirety.
“Let’s compare:
1. A private individual buys an office building for 1.7 million euros. Just three years later, with no significant changes in the market in that time, the same building is bought by the Ministry of Justice for 7.7 million euros. The Ministry overpays by 6 million or 4.5 times. The Minister declares that this is the market and that everything is ok.
2. In 1992, a private individual buys an estate in Trenta from a private individual for 45,000 DM at that time. 13 years later, he sells it to a private company for three times the purchase price or 120,000 euros. In the meantime, Slovenia joins the
European Union, and property prices on the market in this part of the country rise by at least four times.
In the first case, the building was to be occupied by the judiciary.
In the second case, the same judicial branch has been prosecuting a private individual for 15 years for selling too cheaply – conducting a judicial investigation, accepting empty indictments and, together with the prosecutor’s office, delaying the proceedings. The mainstream media also writes some 100 incriminating articles on the topic.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Justice illegally takes away the licence of a judicial appraiser appointed by the investigating judge herself, who, contrary to “expectations”, gives a realistic estimate of the value of the property at the time of the sale.
Is this the rule of law or the rule of the “right” people?
Ž. K.
