By: Peter Jančič (Spletni časopis)
The court, in a secret procedure (hidden from the public), convicted four police officers who protected foreign statesmen from left-wing protesters during the EU-Western Balkans summit on October 5th, 2021.
The protests were very violent, and the safety of foreign statesmen was at risk. The judicial process was conducted based on a procedure for issuing a punitive order, which was added to the legislation to save costs in court proceedings and to quickly resolve minor matters without a main hearing and thus without public oversight.
In these cases, the media have no opportunity to monitor court proceedings and inform the public fairly, even though there are no valid reasons to keep the process hidden from the public. This same legal provision was already used for a secret trial in the case of Nika Kovač, where the court secretly, without a public hearing, convicted an unknown person for allegedly harming the health and appearance of the president of the March 8th Institute – an organisation that, at the time, had nearly half a million euros in revenue from unknown sources. This institute is a party organisation founded by Minister Simon Maljevac (Levica). The name of the convicted person could not be obtained because courts, under the pretext of protecting the privacy of criminals, systematically exclude the public’s right to information in all cases except where the constitution explicitly forbids it. In this instance, there was no public pronouncement of the verdict.
In reality, the secret trial served to protect left-wing activist Nika Kovač, who had previously accused the right of being behind a physical attack on her. The secret trial and secret verdict prevented the public from determining whether Nika Kovač had possibly lied to discredit the political opposition of Prime Minister Robert Golob’s government, for which she works.
Secret trials are a violation of the constitution, which mandates that court proceedings must be public. The constitution requires public oversight to prevent political abuses of the judiciary.
The headlines in government-aligned media regarding the conviction of the police officers – for example, on Necenzurirano – as well as past public statements by ruling politicians interfering in the ongoing judicial process, indicate that this was a staged trial and a politically motivated conviction of police officers at the request of the current government. Headlines such as “First convictions for police officers who intervened in protests against Janša’s government” make this clear.
Such headlines (not only on Necenzurirano) suggest that the officers were punished in a secret trial simply for ensuring security during the “wrong” government’s tenure. Moreover, it is well known that members of the ruling coalition had called for police convictions and that the government retroactively annulled penalties and financially rewarded violent protesters against the previous administration through special legislation.
The aggressive public statements by government politicians and MPs about “gassing” protests also served as an implicit threat to judges, pressuring them to rule in line with the ruling coalition’s political interests.
The court convicted the police officers through a punitive order, using an expedited procedure without a main hearing. The verdict is not yet final, and the officers have the right to appeal. If they do, the trial will no longer be secret and completely hidden from the public, as it has been so far.