Remarks on Television "Echoes" (Tuesday, March 10, 1998)
Translated from the Ljubljana newspaper DRUZINA, March 23, 1998.

In contravention of basic customs and practices of journalism the Slovenian national television engaged first in an extensive attack (Tuesday, March 10, 1998) on the position of the Constitutional Court in which it publicly challenged its Chief Justice to respond and then, a day later, refused to publish the Chief Justice's response. The television report omitted one-fifth of the text of the response, it arbitrarily cut out the passages that were critical of its own conduct in order to avoid unfavorable publicity of its own practices. The Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court has been authorized by his colleagues on the Court to publish in the present form the complete and unabridged statement given to the national television.

STATEMENT OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT:

The national television, which should be particularly careful to ensure that its reporting is impartial and of high professional quality, has taken the liberty to do the following, to wit: shortly before Parliament was scheduled to decide how should the Law on Restitution be modified consistent with the several decisions of the Constitutional Court, the national television came out as an advocate of those pressure groups in the Slovenian politics who are pressuring the Parliament to ignore the decisions of the Constitutional Court.

Everyone has the right to publicly express his disagreement with the decisions and positions of the Constitutional Court so long as he remains within the bounds of criticism. There have been and still are in many democratic countries where disputes concerning the decisions of their highest courts exist precisely because those decisions cannot be further disputed and must be unconditionally complied with by the other two branches of government, that is, the Parliament and the executive branch. The criticism, however, may not degenerate into outright demands that the Parliament ignore the decisions of the Constitutional Court. An action of this kind represents an egregious attack on the basic principles of the rule of law which is inconceivable in traditionally democratic countries.

In this country [Slovenia], however, the national television selected out of extensive polemics that lasted several months only two contributions for publication both of which were from the side which was attacking the rulings of the Constitutional Court. The television failed to inform those of its viewers who do not read the Saturday supplement of DELO that those viewpoints represented only the views of one side in a public debate that had been already going on for three months. This blatantly partisan support of one side was then reinforced by representing in a special feature as undisputed truth the assertion that the disputed forests [claimed by the Church] are now being returned to the Vatican and that Slovenia is losing its sovereignty over that part of its territory as a result. Slovenian national television is thus taking the liberty of fanning up political animosity not only by showing its partiality by favoring one side but also by representation through its journalists as uncontroverted truth what has already been demonstrated in the course of a public debate to be a manifestly false and untrue insinuation stemming out of an incredible ignorance of the law or outright dissembling. If there were any substance to the prattle that ownership of the properties of the Catholic Church granted to it as fiefs by feudal lords is not permitted by our Constitution and that dioceses are not legal persons under our laws, then, of course, all the activities of the Catholic Church as an unconstitutional institution would have to be summarily interdicted. Then the Church should be entitled to no restitution of property but all the possessions that it still retains would have to be confiscated. The authors of such inventions, although they are incapable or unwilling to follow their arguments through to their logical conclusions, should know that in this country even the communist regime never attempted something like they propose. On the contrary, in our legal system, the dioceses continue to be recognized as legal persons as required by the Law on the Religious Communities harkening back to the times of the socialist government.

These harsh words manifest the grave concern of the Constitutional Court over the extremely immature and irresponsible conduct of not some influential Slovenian politicians as well as of some reputable lawyers and, not the least, of the national television who show their contempt for what we could call the heritage of European legal civilization. Let me, therefore, conclude by saying what is already well known to the Slovenian public, namely, that the international community is acutely sensitive for such and similar manifestations of disrespect of the role of constitutional courts in the states in transition and that such attitudes are one of the elements which are evaluated in determining the readiness of such states for integration into the international community.