By: G. B.
“Special agent of the Deep State, i.e., prosecutor Boštjan Valenčič, has once again appealed against the procedural decision of the court in the Trenta case. He has been doing this since 2014. This leads to scheduling court hearings before the elections and then letting the case expire, so it would not accidentally end up at the European Court of Human Rights,” wrote the President of SDS party Janez Janša on the X network.
However, beware, Boštjan Valenčič is not just anyone. Since 2021, he has been the president of the Association of State Prosecutors of Slovenia. We also found his Facebook profile, where, among posts accessible to everyone, we found a satirical video posted by Radio 1 about the now former Minister of the Interior Aleš Hojs, who allegedly came to the border with Croatia with his mother and had to turn around (it is, of course, a parody). In another, much older post, there is a photo with a sarcastic comment about Zoran Janković. Otherwise, there are no political posts, as judges and prosecutors must be very careful about what they publish – incidentally, even that “anti-Janša” post by Urška Klakočar Zupančič, which made her famous and got her a ticket to politics, was created when she was still a district judge. It involved sharing a screenshot of a private post, which UKZ only shared with friends.
However, it is crucial to acknowledge that he is undoubtedly an intelligent prosecutor who knows how to keep a low profile. Nevertheless, it should not be overlooked that two years ago, three months before the elections, the Legal Network for the Protection of Democracy published an interview with him, in which it was possible to capture the message that the prosecutor’s ranks were considerably thinned due to the politics of the then (Janez Janša’s) government. “Concerns are also raised by certain legislative changes here, such as changes to the law on the organisation and work of the police, which undoubtedly signify the politicisation of the investigating body. In this case, the Constitutional Court has temporarily suspended the implementation of some controversial provisions of the law, but nevertheless, there is a tendency for the executive branch to further increase its influence and control over the operation of the investigating bodies, as well as the undisputed desire to control the work of law enforcement and judicial authorities,” he said, among other things.
And if we said that he is an intelligent prosecutor, it is not just a compliment but also an indication of great responsibility. We doubt that Valenčič would not know the timeline of the judicial process in the Trenta case and how many judicial proceedings have been abused in the past due to their coordination with elections – the Patria affair being the most obvious example, as Janša had to go to jail just before the elections, which was a clear signal to voters not to support a politician who had been finally convicted — regardless, the Constitutional Court annulled the final conviction, but the damage to the state had already been done and could not be undone.
In this regard, it should be mentioned that in 2022, Požareport reported that Valenčič is under the strong influence of prosecutor Hinko Jenull, whose son is the famous “political cyclist” Jaša Jenull. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that there is a political motive behind procedural manoeuvres for the purpose of public opinion engineering.