By: Jože Biščak
This was not some minor matter that could simply be brushed aside with a shrug and a muttered let’s forget about it. It was about the fact that politicians could, if they wished, casually and arbitrarily pry into your private life.
The parliamentary commission of inquiry was a carefully constructed machine for discrediting ideological and political opponents, operating on an industrial scale. There were no suspects, only witnesses. And those witnesses, most of whom were private individuals, appeared before chairs Mojca Pašek Šetinc and Tamara Vonta as if they were entering a meat grinder. The verdict was known in advance, personal data “leaked” to certain media outlets in real time, and the timing of the final report was no coincidence. To ensure that politicians never again dare to do something like this, the Institute for the Protection of Victims of the 2022-26 Parliamentary Inquiry was established a few days ago.
The institute is not a “Janša-aligned” project, as some would like to portray it. It is about defending a basic principle: that the state must not abuse its institutions against individuals and businesses. It will therefore assist those whose rights were violated and will also participate in discussions on amendments to the law governing parliamentary inquiries. This is presented as a civic initiative. If a similar commission had been led by someone from the right and had scrutinised the accounts of left-wing media outlets and companies in the same way, the problem would be the same. The rules must apply equally to everyone. Observance of those rules is not a courtesy politicians may choose to extend, but a fundamental principle of the rule of law and a prerequisite for democracy in any civilised country. Otherwise, all talk of the “free individual” and “free enterprise” is merely empty words on paper.
The commission of inquiry, of which I have been a victim, either did not understand or did not want to understand what business financing means. A company survives through sales, contracts, advertising revenue, and the services it provides. If a state-owned company enters a contract with a media outlet because that outlet provides audience reach, that does not automatically constitute “indirect financing of a political party.” It is a business decision. Money earned or spent by a company is not “party money” unless it is transferred directly and illegally into the accounts of a political organisation. The commission simply erased this distinction. Every payment was interpreted through the lens of conspiracy. If Telekom or another company paid for advertising, if people associated with media organisations received fees for their work, or if revenues increased because business activity expanded, all of this was treated as “evidence” of indirect political financing. Economic logic was inconvenient to Pašek Šetinc, Vonta, Modic, and others, and was therefore ignored. What remained was ideological reasoning that produced not only vivid fantasies but also insinuations and falsehoods.
These were not harmless matters. When a parliamentary commission abuses its powers, demands access to business and even personal bank accounts, discloses confidential business information, and treats witnesses as suspects without a clear legal basis, the author argues that this constitutes an attack on the rule of law. Witnesses were questioned, data were allegedly used outside the commission’s mandate, and inquiries extended far beyond the formal scope of the investigation. It was a witch hunt. In a normal democracy and a free society, such severe intrusions into privacy would have caused a scandal of enormous proportions. But not in Slovenia. Here certain people are apparently allowed to do anything.
Parliamentary inquiries are intended to oversee those in power and determine the political accountability of public office holders. They are a legitimate oversight tool, but only when legal and constitutional limits are respected. Once those limits are crossed, a commission becomes an instrument of political score-settling, public humiliation, and the criminalisation of pre-selected targets. That is exactly what happened. For that reason, the institute intends to pursue its demands for explanations and disclosures regarding who participated in what it describes as this “dirty game,” and how they participated, all the way to the end. So that something like this will never happen again.