Late Monday night, Slovenian parliament approved the Šutar Act. PM Robert Golob and his government drafted the law as a response to an incident in Novo mesto about three weeks ago, where a man was attacked outside a night club by one or more members of the Roma minority and later died of injuries sustained in the brawl. But it is also much more than that.
For some time, tensions between the majority Slovenian and minority Roma populations in Dolenjska region have been running high. A combination of crime (petty and otherwise), failure of integration policies, welfare abuse and bog-standard chauvinism have turned every interaction between the two groups into a flashpoint. And then the point flashed. Bigly.
The death of Aco Šutar sparked a massive public outcry and highlighted systemic failures in social integration as well as crime prevention and prosecution among members of Roma minority. None of this is surprising and people with local knowledge have been warning the national authorities about things going south in Dolenjska region, for years.
A fuckup of epic proportions
The Novo mesto incident was a fuckup of epic proportions, both politically and in terms of human cost. The pile-on was immediate and to a large extent understandable. People wanted heads to roll and they wanted them to roll now.
SDS and NSi, of course, specifically wanted Golob’s head to roll. Failing that, they would settle for the scalp of Luka Mesec, whom they hate with passion and who coordinates Roma-related policies, including welfare support. Because of course welfare queen dog-whistles are a key tenet of right-wing discourse on Roma.
However, for a politician that was caught off guard by a shit–storm a lot of people were warning him was coming, Apex Avian and his people gave a master-class in crisis management.
Rather than hoisting a white flag, that same weekend PM Golob descended upon Novo mesto, where he had justice minister Andreja Katič and interior minister Boštjan Poklukar fall on their swords. The Big Bird correctly assessed that the people’s immediate concern was of a security nature, which is why dealing with Luka Mesec could wait for another day. Besides, being a Levica co-leader, he is sort-of untouchable.
Katič and Poklukar, however… No-one will miss those two. Katič is a loyal SD foot-soldier and she will surely continue in her usefulness. Poklukar on the other hand was damaged goods to begin with, barely surviving two no-confidence votes just this year. It is frankly amazing that Golob put up with Poklukar until now. That he did might have do to with Damir Črnčec’s influence over the security apparatus, but that is a story for another day.
Surviving until Friday afternoon
The PM didn’t stop there, however . He spent the Monday after the incident strategizing and returned to Novo mesto on Tuesday. There, he met with Aco Šutar’s widow and (this time with a very pliable Luka Mesec and other ministers in tow) attended a session of the city council while several thousand people were demonstrating outside, telling him to go fuck himself and the horse he rode in on.
Say what you will about the man (and there is plenty to be said about him, see below), but this took some cojones.
The human angle of this move might have been somewhat unnerving. It is always tricky when politicos descend from their rarefied circles to meet with, you know, people. Doubly so if the people in question are livid.
But the political angle was much more clear cut. In the immortal words of Sir Humphrey Appleby, politics is about surviving until Friday afternoon. This is exactly what Robert Golob was aiming for.
To that end he adopted wholesale just about any idea anyone threw at him. Up to and including the entirety of what the local communities have been screaming at the national authorities for months. And because a true populist always goes the extra mile, you know, for the people, he unleashed his inner authoritarian and promised vast expansion of police and prosecutorial powers, as well as curbing welfare.
Far-right wet dreams
The whole thing was so disconcerting that even SDS leader and the man voted most likely to run a personality cult, Janez Janša got spooked and started talking about how the security services don’t need new powers. Janša’s initial response was that they just need to start executing existing ones.
And in a classic case of a broken clock being correct twice daily, Marshal Twito is right, even if for the wrong reasons. Days after the Aco Šutar’s death showed that the cops, taxmen, social services and just about every fucking agency in this sorry excuse for a country know how to do their jobs.
Obviously, a security clampdown is not a long-term solution. But the long-term solution that the government came up with is problematic to say the least. Finally, we get to deal with the omnibus Šutar Act.
First, there’s the omnibus legislation itself. While technically acceptable, it is a shitty way to legislate. And that’s not just pengovsky talking, the constitutional court said so a couple of months ago. And while the English abstract in the previous link includes only veiled criticism of the legislative technique, the full Slovenian text of the decision and various dissents leave little to imagination.
Flying by the seat of their pants
Second, it’s the content of the law. Attempting to appease the livid public and cut Janez Janša off at the pass (successfully, as it turned out), the Big Bird crammed every far-right wet dream into the mess that was the draft Law On Immediate Measures For Ensuring Public Safety, as the Šutar Act is officially known.
Police entry without a warrant? Check. Admissibility of illegally collected evidence? Check. Withdrawal of welfare benefits for tax debtors? Check. Automatic license plates recognition? Check. Prolonging detention? Check. Limiting access to legal aid? Check. And so on, ad nauseam.
The parliamentary legal service tore the draft law to shreds. They spent fifty-five pages detailing all the ways in which the legislation is problematic and unconstitutional. And that’s in addition to most other legal experts, human rights lawyers and civic-minded NGOs.
In fact, it ultimately dawned on the coalition MPs that the government may have gone too far and so, even though the law was rammed through the parliament in an urgent procedure, they amended or or simply threw out 29 of the 33 articles. Not to belabor the point, but the coalition basically rewrote the Šutar Act as it went along.
It all goes to show that in handling Roma and Roma-related issues, this government was and is flying by the seat of its pants. True, this goes for most previous governments as well. Which is probably the law enjoyed near-bipartisan support.
But even if the final version is a severely watered down version of the draft Šutar Act, it is still draconian enough and potentially discriminatory enough to raise alarm on the EU level.
But wait, there’s more…
PM Golob seems to have taken to heart the famous quote by Winston Churchill Rahm Emanuel Paul Romer and decided not to waste a crisis. So, not only did he tackle to the hard right and then some, he also unleashed his inner security hawk.
Specifically, despite previously vowing to use the normal parliamentary procedure and subject the new law on Slovenian intelligence agency SOVA to three separate readings, the Apex Avian and his flock suddenly reversed course. Now, they want it passed using the emergency procedure, just like the Šutar Act.
Sue, the SOVA Act was last amended nearly 20 years ago and the world has changed dramatically since then. Which is why Muddy Hollows spooks are about to be given a shitload of new spy toys and powers, including IMSI catchers, installing spyware and face-and-voice recognition tools. Even more importantly, they will now be able to do their spy shit domestically, too, provided their operation has a foreign angle.
The above may sound self-evident, especially given the burning dumpster fire that is the world right now. But for historical reasons (think socialist secret police UDBA), domestic intelligence agencies in Muddy Hollows were not allowed to monitor Slovenian nationals.
Soon, this will change. Citing vague connections of some members of Roma community to international organised crime, the government went for the emergency legislative procedure. Which is a big fucking stretch, given that virtually all of organised crime in this country already has some sort of foreign connection.
Shocked, shocked to see that gambling is going on around here
So, the government discovering that criminals among Roma population have links to other countries and hurrying to give more power to its spooks is about as genuine as Captain Renault closing down Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca.
To be fair, despite occasionally turning into a clown-car, this country’s intelligence service was always quite busy and decent at doing it. And there is a case to be made for updating their toolbox. But these things should be done via a measured and – if necessary – repeated public debate. They shouldn’t be rammed through the parliament just on the flimsiest of excuses.
Oh, and did pengovsky mention that in order to ramp up police presence in Novo mesto region, the army was deployed to relieve the cops patroling the border?
One can admire the political savvy with which PM Golob navigated the crisis and accept the urgency of the matter is real, even if mostly due to decades of mutual ignorance. But the fact remains the incident in Novo mesto primarily resulted in a broad security clampdown that is now backed (probably redundatnly) by a shoddy piece of legislation. That, in turn is raising human rights concerns even after it has been watered down, while the whole thing is used as a pretext to fast-track other elements of the surveillance state.
This looks funny
It is as if the election were merely four months away. And in that context, it will be interesting to see who made a better judgement call: Miha Kordiš of newly founded Mi, Socialisti (Us, Socialists) and Anže Logar’s Democrats, who voted against the bill; Levica, whose ministers and MPs abstained from votes in the cabinet and the parliament; or GS, SDS, SD and NSi, who supported the Šutar Act.
Pengovsky cautions against reading too much into this, but these sure are some weird-ass coalitions.
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