By: Sara Kovač (Nova24tv.si)
The dismissal of programme councillors at a time when the Constitutional Court Judges have temporarily suspended the implementation of the Radio-Television Slovenia Act is in total contradiction with the decision of the Constitutional Court of Slovenia and a drastic interference in the autonomy of the national media outlet. This is a complete abuse of power and clear evidence of the authoritarianism of the coalition of the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje Svoboda), says the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS).
At the 14th extraordinary meeting of the Commission for Public Office and Elections on the 10th of May, MP Mojca Šetinc Pašek stated, “Then we will probably have to have another meeting where we will have to start the procedures for dismissing these people who, after the suspension of parts of the new RTV Act, are only doing day-to-day business, and who have thus had their mandate extended indefinitely by the Constitutional Court.”
As the former journalist of TV Slovenia threatened at the above-mentioned meeting, the process of an unlawful barbaric coup began when it was announced that the coalition parties – the Freedom Movement, the Social Democrats (Socialni demokrati – SD) and the Left (Levica) – were proposing to initiate the process of dismissal of certain members of the Programme Council of the national media outlet, RTV Slovenia. This is a move that seriously undermines the foundations of the rule of law, which has further been confirmed recently with the following words of Prime Minister Robert Golob: “I, above all, feel very frustrated because I was naive and believed that RTV could be depoliticised in a civil and legal way. We should have first taken over RTV politically and then started depoliticising. We wanted, together with the civil society, to skip this stage where the Freedom Movement party would take over RTV.”
The coalition has put itself above the rule of law, because, legally speaking, the councillors cannot be dismissed in the current situation. This is a politically motivated illegal action of deliberate destruction of the public RTV and a conscious illegality in the political subjugation of the institution. The dismissal of the programme councillors at a time when the Constitutional Court Judges have suspended the implementation of the RTV Act is in total contradiction of the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia and a drastic interference with the autonomy of the national media outlet. This is a complete abuse of power and a clear demonstration of the Freedom Movement party’s authoritarianism. Obviously, they believe that the end justifies the means. And the goal is the complete subjugation of the public service RTV, and they will use any means necessary to do it, as announced by Prime Minister Golob, the SDS party believes.