The Constitutional Court, where the hard left has a strong majority, has finally annulled the decree of the Municipality of Radenci on the naming of streets, squares and settlements, which renamed Tito’s Road to the Road of Slovenian Independence. With this decision, the Constitutional Court has moved the Republic of Slovenia even further away from a democratic and legal state and closer to what we rejected at independence.
The renaming of the Road of Slovenian Independence back to Tito’s Road is a new scandal for the current composition of the Constitutional Court and for activist judging on ideological grounds, because the Constitutional Court has reinstated a road named after a dictator who massively violated fundamental human rights.
And how did the majority of judges justify their decision? That the Mayor, by publishing the regulation too quickly, arbitrarily prevented the citizens and municipal councillors from initiating the referendum procedure. At the same time, it ruled that, until otherwise regulated, the ordinance previously in force should apply to the naming of the disputed street. The Court did not rule on the content of the decree.
The road to justice will be steep
The street was first renamed by the municipal council on the 28th of May 2020, followed by a petition for a referendum, which ultimately did not take place.
The road was renamed a second time by amending the ordinance on the 29th of December of the same year, but the Civil Initiative Radenci and four municipal councillors submitted a request to the Constitutional Court to assess the constitutionality of the amended ordinance for renaming the road.
In the petition, the Mayor and the Municipality of Radenci were accused of several breaches of the applicable regulations, but the Constitutional Court only addressed the allegation of a breach of Article 46, paragraph 3, of the Local Self-Government Act, which refers to a 15-day time limit for submitting a request for a subsequent referendum, and did not rule on the other allegations.
The Constitutional Court annulled the ordinance at the time on the grounds that Mayor Leljak had acted improperly in promulgating the ordinance before the expiry of the 15-day time limit for submitting a request for a referendum on the ordinance. Leljak announced the re-adoption of the ordinance renaming the road, which the Municipal Council did at its meeting on the 29th of June 2021. The re-adopted ordinance was then suspended by the Constitutional Court and has now been annulled.
C. Š.
