In what could arguably be described as a Christmas Eve dump (or a Christmas miracle, depending on your point of view), the constitutional court hobbled a key piece of PM Robert Golob’s much-vaunted health reform. Apparently, Santa is not the only one to have a naughty and nice lists. Slovenian constitutional court has them, too. Sometimes in the same ruling.
That said, the court also upheld a different part of the same law, as well as deferred ruling on other points of the challenge at a later date. There are probably good reasons for this, but pengovsky would also like to think that the court decided to split the difference on key issues, kick the rest of the can down the road and tried to be home by dinner. It is Festivus, after all.
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When your own communications strategy bites you in the ass
The main takeaway from the ruling is that the court nixed the government’s idea to ban doctors working both in private and public institutions. At least that’s what the media have latched on to and what the opposition grabbed and ran away with.
Dual practice is a blanket term that covered a wide array of business relations between doctors and the institutions they work(ed) for. But as long as the public discourse was going broadly in the government’s favour, the latter did little to dispel the confusion. In government-health-speak, public equaled good, and private was bad.
Which is why now, when the court said not so fast, the government has more of a problem than it needed to have. A classic case of a one’s own strategy biting one in the ass.
You see, the court recognised that it wasn’t all just about the right to free enterprise (which was the gist of the complaint). It also found that the new law also infringed on the freedom of work. But while it allowed the ban on doctors being sole proprietors in addition to their public sector employment (see below), the court said that not allowing doctors to seek additional employment outside their public sector jobs goes too far.
As a result, the judges tossed out the relevant articles of the new law, re-instituted the previous arrangement, where doctors can have more than one employer, both public and private (terms and conditions apply) and gave the parliament a year to fix the issue. So, that’s a pretty big kick in the already shaky attempts at health reform.
Benefit of the dobut. And lots of it.
On the other hand, the ruling upholds the ban on doctors’ sole proprietorship (so-called s.p.’s). Had they been more careful with their messaging the government could have claimed this as a victory. But they weren’t and they can’t.
In fact, initial muted reactions by minister of health Valentina Prevolnik Rupel and Levica co-coordinator Luka Mesec suggest they both saw the ban as one and indivisible. Which is certainly a choice. At any rate, neither is very cheerful on this Christmas Eve.
As pengovsky writes this, the Big Bird is yet to chime in on the subject. But once the dust settles, the government and the coalition parties will probably switch to a more upbeat tune. Not just because they’ve long gone full Blues Brothers on this issue, but also because the ruling does seem to lay out a couple of very important assertions.
First, it states in no uncertain terms that the government has a wide latitude in adjusting complex systems (such as health reform) in line with its policy objectives. And second, the court sets out the public good as the standard by which the acceptability of government actions should be judged.
To put it very crudely (and pengovsky is happy to stand corrected if/when finer minds sift through the ruling), partially limiting certain freedoms is OK, provided there is a net positive outcome for the general public.
EDIT: As pengovsky was about to publish, the Apex Avian squawked and said pretty much the same thing.
We also have the date for elections
While this is a no-brainer in the classic “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” scenario, things get much more dicey in a situation where there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns, to quote the late-and-not-so-great Donald Rumsfeld.
So, whether it wanted it or not, the court has effectively split the difference and gave the government a large benefit of the doubt. All the while sending it back to the drawing board. At least on this part of the health reform.
That said, wide latitude or not, in a couple of months none of this may matter a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys. You see, president Nataša Pirc Musar announced that she will schedule elections for 22 March and it is by no means certain this government will be the one to handle the health reform going forward.
Which was supposed to be the original subject of this post, but the constitutional court had other plans. To put in the words of the great philosopher, it be like that sometimes.
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