To say that Janez Janša’s ruling right-wing coalition is making a mess of things would be an understatement. Firstly, this here blog abhors using such milquetoast language, so the correct term would be incompetent twats. Secondly, despite appearances to the contrary, Janša’s minority government is shaky as fuck. In fact, judging by the last couple of weeks, his coalition partners keep picking up bad weeks to quit sniffing glue.
And thirdly, whatever coherent policy they had is locked up in a referendum bid against the Logar/Vrtovec omnibus bill. And having apparently hit “empty” in their ideas tank about two weeks after taking office, the Glorious Leader and his ilk are doing the one thing they always knew how to do. Wage culture wars. Which is why the good people of Muddy Hollows will vote in four referendums this Sunday, each more damaging to democratic values than the other.
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Legislative belle of the referendum ball
With three, nay, two days until the day of the vote, it seems beside the point to explain what these referendums are nominally about. And yet, according to some polling data, almost a third of the voters are still undecided. So a brief explainer is in order.
The belle of the referendum ball, so to speak, is a legislative referendum on an updated law on parliamentary inquiry. TL;DR: the version of the law the new parliament passed soon after being sworn in removes virtually all procedural safeguards for both witnesses and people under parliamentary investigation. The powers of a parliamentary inquiry committee were always great, but if the law is allowed to stand (and if it survives a near-certain constitutional challenge), they will be almost limitless.
Specifically, civic-minded NGOs and journalists fear they will be investigated six ways to Sunday on the flimsiest of pretexts simply because they will rub the government the wrong way. And under the new law, they will have no recourse to dispute or challenge the committee investigators rummaging through their finances, personal correspondence or other private matters. They will only be able to dispute the findings once the committee had finished its work and the parliament had adopted its conclusions.
Referendum against political police
However, seeing as more than two thirds of parliamentary investigations to date never adopted any final conclusions, a scenario where activists, journalists and political opponents are dragged through the mud, see their personal details strategically leaked in the most embarrassing way possible, is not just likely, but highly possible. In fact, in light of what NSi leader and the man who still needs a bumper seat at a grown-up table Jernej Vrtovec said months ago, this might well be the primary motivation behind the change.
Which is why the NGOs and the opposition have billed this referendum as a vote against political police. A bit dramatic, to be sure, but on the whole, not entirely unreasonably.
In the interest of fairness, pengovsky should note this is the second revamping of the law on parliamentary inquiry. Back in 2024, when the balance of political power was tilted very much in favour of the left-liberal camp, then-leader of the opposition Janša was doing his fucking best (or was that fucking worst?) to drum up a parliamentary investigation into then-PM Robert Golob.
Janša’s fishing expedition
But since there was little he could pin onto Golob that was not already pinned by then (most prominently both anti-graft investigations which keep biting the Apex Avian into his, well, tail), Janša wanted to go onto a bit of a fishing expedition and open an inquiry into Golob’s time as head of Gen-i energy company.
Either because he was feeling his oats or because he was afraid the inquiry could actually come up with shit on him, Golob had the coalition change the law and strenghten procedural safeguards favouring witnesses and people under investigation.
Most controversially, however, the 2024 revision made it way harder to launch an inquiry in the first place. As a result, the SDS filed a constitutional complaint and just before the the new Janša-era law was passed, judges threw out the most problematic provision of the Golob-era law and have yet to rule on the rest.
But rather than wait for the resolution of the constitutional challenge they launched when in opposition, the new ruling majority started feeling their oats and passed a law that removed safeguards across the board, allowing them to walk roughshod across anyone they deem politically undesirable.
Ignoring the law wholesale
Not that the Janša-Vrtovec-Logar-Mr. Muscles coalition needs such quaint things as a legal basis to get away with shit in the parliament. One of the first things the newly-minted opposition wanted to do, was to call a parliamentary inquiry into the Black Cube Affair (link).
And remember, under the Golob-era law on parliamentary investigation, which at the time was fully on the books, the right-wing kids on the block could have approved it (as required by the constitution, parliamentary rules, the law and custom), and then – perfectly legally – slow-walked it for fucking ages.
These jokers, however, straight up refused to approve the agenda for that month’s parliamentary session (link), making the procedure to open the Black Cube inquiry null and void. And when all hell broke loose, the opposition tried again in the next session, but the coalition voted to remove the items from the agenda.
Leninist heaven
That happened even though the rules clearly state that upon presenting 30 MP signatures, the Speaker must approve a parliamentary investigation. So, why are the Glorious Leader and his believers eve bothering with the new law? pengovsky can only guess that a veneer of legality, however disingenuous, is better than no legality at all.
If there is such a thing as Leninist heaven, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov must be smiling down upon his equally hair-deprived, but just as goal-oriented student.
Of the four Sunday referendums, this is the only one to have immediate and direct legal ramifications. If the NO vote prevails, that is, if the left-liberal opposition and the NGOs get their way, the Janša-era law will become null and void and – perhaps most importantly – the parliament will be barred from touching this part of the legislation for a year. So, even outside of prospects of a semi-police state, there is a lot riding on Sunday vote.
So, you’re saying there is a chance?
However, in order to win it, the NO campaign will have to clear two hurdles: win more votes than the pro-government YES campaign and have the total count of NO votes exceed 20% of all eligible voters, or around 340,000 votes. In all likelihood, this will be a steep hill to climb.
But if two weeks ago it all seemed a Quixotic campaign at best, some late polling and early voting turnout suggest that maaaaaybe the NO camp can eke out a win. It is still an outside chance, but in the immortal words of Jim Carrey in Dumb And Dumber, “so you’re saying there is a chance?”
Only one way to find out.
Tune in tomorrow for pengovsky’s primer on the sad trio of consultative referendums.
