By: Sara Kovač / Nova24tv
On Wednesday, the former dean of the FDV and Robert Golob’s adviser Dr Anton Grizold and Grizold’s successor at FDV Bojko Bučar will have to stand at the dock. The prosecution also filed a lawsuit against Kučan’s friend Gabi Čačinovič Vogrinčič. All three found themselves in court due to the affair of the University of Ljubljana, when they paid their allowances for permanent readiness at many members, such as the Faculty of Economics and Philosophy, and the Faculty of Social Work, where the first conviction fell. Grizold and Bučar face from three months to five years in prison.
The web portal Škandal24 writes that this year’s returnee to state politics, Robert Golob, who once played for Positive Slovenia, is also drawing other forgotten politicians out of mothballs. A few days ago, Dr Anton Grizold, a professor and former politician of the LDS party, spoke with him at a press conference on security issues. In 2004 elections, Grizold received 1,517 votes when he ran in the Novo mesto constituency.
It should be noted that the documentation of the former SDV, found in the Archives of Slovenia by researcher and publicist Igor Omerza, shows that Grizold had the code name Ghana and the number 14000-05883, which according to Udba records means the source of the SDV or Udba. After a failed political career, Grizold returned to the civil service at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana (FDV), where he also served as dean. And so, he has to go to court on Wednesday, March 23rd, together with his colleague Bojko Bučar.
They say that this is a criminal case, as prosecutor Matija Hostnik accuses them of abusing their position, and Grizold and Bučar are threatened with three months to five years in prison. Grizold and Bučar, former deans of the Faculty of Social Sciences, found themselves on the dock in the affair of all Ljubljana University scandals, when they paid their allowances for permanent readiness at many members, such as the Faculty of Economics and Philosophy and the Faculty of Social Work, where the first conviction also fell.
The Penal Code defines the abuse of official position or official rights in the event that an official or public servant who, in order to gain illegal property for himself or someone else, uses his official position or exceeds the limits of official rights or fails to perform official duties is punished with imprisonment from three months to five years.
Delo reports that former dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences (FDV) Bučar, who is accused by the prosecution of allegedly abusing his position in the affair of paying allowances for permanent readiness, stepped on the bench of the Ljubljana District Court in February. According to STA, Bučar denies guilt, and the lawsuit against Bučar’s predecessor, former dean Grizold, has become obsolete. In this case, it is therefore not clear whether another case is pending against Grizold, which is not obsolete, as he has been summoned to court as a defendant.
Paid allowances without legal basis
The prosecution accuses Bučar of abusing his official position as the dean of the FDV in the period from October 2011 to September 2013 to gain illegal benefit for himself and others. He allegedly did so by issuing orders and decisions on permanent readiness for 24 faculty employees, for which he had no legal basis. According to the prosecution, Bučar knew that the payments were illegal, but he pursued the goal of increasing the salaries of employees, said District State Prosecutor Renata Vodnjov.
Bučar, who has been retired for about two years, argued that he inherited the payments of permanent standby allowances from the former dean of FDV Grizold, but when he took office, no one warned him that there was anything wrong with the payments. He did not receive such a warning from his colleagues, other deans of the University of Ljubljana, with whom they met on a monthly basis and discuss various issues, including allowances for constant readiness. When he took over as dean, the Faculty of Social Sciences was in an unenviable financial position, and colleagues warned him that they were entitled to allowances as civil servants, he said. According to STA, Bučar also emphasised that the faculty’s permanent readiness allowances were not paid from public funds, but from funds obtained by the faculty from marketing activities. Bučar denied the accusation of the prosecution that he allegedly prescribed the payment of the allowance for constant readiness.
They also illegally paid allowances elsewhere
Prosecutor Hostnik also filed a lawsuit against Milan Kučan’s confidante and former dean of the Faculty of Social Work Gabi Čačinović Vogrničič, who was found guilty and given a suspended sentence of six months in prison. However, they had no legal basis for payments that dripped into the accounts of civil servants between 2012 and 2015, and the total amount of illegally paid allowances at the University of Ljubljana amounted to as much as 780,943 euros, of which 63,635 euros went to the FDV.