Piše: Janja Strah
“Given that in your reply to our letter you wrote that you cannot interfere in Slovenian legal affairs, while at the same time you are obviously very committed to getting the court to take a decision that will suit the left wing of politics, we have to say that you are using double standards and that you are guided by hypocrisy in your work,” wrote Jože Biščak and Vinko Vasle in a new letter to Věra Jourová, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Values.
We are publishing the letter in full:
“Dear Věra Jourová, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Values, we can do no other than write to you again. And it is clear that this will not be the last time. Just briefly.
We have to admit that we are very disappointed about your visit to Ljubljana. Not because Slovenia, as a beautiful small country, does not deserve visits from influential and eminent people like you, but because you met with the President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, Matej Accetto. This Court recently suspended the implementation of the amendment to the RTV Slovenia Act. Given that you have interfered and commented on the Slovenian media in the past and have been concerned about their fate, we see this meeting as an unacceptable pressure on the highest instance of the Slovenian legal system.
May we remind you that in January, through Mr Audrius Perkauskas, you responded to our letter of 19 November 2022, namely:
“In this respect, please note that the European Commission in general does not comment on specific measures taken by Member States that fully fall within the remit of their sovereign powers, such as parliamentary inquiries, and that it has no general powers to intervene in related legal disputes that should be resolved before national courts.”
This means that you do not interfere in legal disputes that are the responsibility of nation states. Right, we respect that. And although you claim that you did not discuss RTV Slovenia with the President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia (we admit that we do not believe you), you did not respect the principle of ‘the appearance of impartiality’ by visiting the Court. Moreover, you have prejudged the final decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, because your statement (that the decision will show how RTV will develop in the future), which is actually the vocabulary of left-wing political activists, cannot be understood in any other way than that you expect the court’s decision to be in favour of the government of Robert Golob.
Given that in your reply to our letter you wrote that you cannot interfere in Slovenian legal affairs, while at the same time you are obviously very committed to getting the court to take a decision that will suit the left wing of politics, we have to say that you are using double standards and that you are guided by hypocrisy in your work.
With respectful and excellent greetings,
Jože Biščak, President of the Slovenian Association of Patriotic Journalists and journalist
Vinko Vasle, columnist and former director of the National Radio (RTV Slovenia)
Ljubljana, 4 March 2023″