SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Remember the Prez’s flying fiasco? To offset the damage, President Danilo Türk asked the Court of Audit to pour over the rent-a-jet procedures which ran up a bill in excess of 90,000 euros. At some point the Anticorruption Commission got involved as well and its findings (published on Tuesday) were intriguing to say the least.

Stojan Tramte (source)

Anti-corruption Commission, headed by Drago Kos, found that while the President legally does not have in influence and power in rent-a-jet and other procurement procedures (and is therefore innocent of any wrongdoing), it was his office which should have exercised more vigilance, restraint and sound economic thinking when organising a flight. Specifically, it failed to perform even basic inquires about prices with flight operators in Slovenia, thus paying far more than the market price at the time of procurement of service. Thus the commission found that the actions of the person responsible are consistent with legal definiton of corruption (failure to act leading to inappropriate use of public funds). However, the Commission also found that no criminal act was committed.

As a result Stojan Tramte, Secretary General of the Office of the President offered his resignation to President Türk on the same day. Yesterday the Prez refused the resignation, citing Tramte’s efforts to improve the procurement procedure within the Office after the affair broke out. The Prez also pointed out that the Commission found there was no criminal activity and that he has already officially reprimanded Tramte immediately after it became obvious that public funds were not spent wisely.

So the whole thing basically amounted to a slap on the wrist. As expected the Anticorrupton Commission went above and beyond the call of duty to clear the Prez of any wrongdoing, pinning the blame on people in the Office. Nothing new there. But although it was probably agreed in advance that Tramte would offer to resign and the President would refuse the resignation, I still like the fact that he indeed offered to resign. Usually in Slovenia public officials excel at shifting the blame around, but Tramte bit the bullet and took the blame.

Obviously this doesn’t make everything alright, but it does hopefully set a precedent for future cases. Both in terms of officials taking responsibility for their actions as well as in terms of actually closing a corruption charge case.

Yesterday pengovsky busied himself with taking apart a particular initiative to change referendum legislation. The post ended with a call for surgical precision when changing instruments of direct democracy, which implicitly means that even pengovsky recognises certain things must be amended.

(source)

I know it’s lame to re-post one’s own comment, but I really think that rather than changing the referendum legislation, the parliament should change its Rules of Procedure (article 169) and no longer ratify multilateral international treaties, where Slovenia is no the primary signatory in a form of a law, unless the treaty falls under the provisions of Artice 3a of the Constitution.

In my opinion this would be quite enough to prevent small bands of referendum raiders from wrecking havoc on key foreign policy decisions. If rules regarding the number of signatures needed to start the process were amended as well (from 2500 non-verified to, say, 7000 verified signatures), things would be just peachy.

And that’s all you need. I think abuse of referendums for one party’s political goals would diminish greatly since it would demand a greater effort on the part of the referendum bidders, leaving the state with more important referendums, where attendance would be higher as well, regardless of the day the vote would be held.

In the wake of the initiative to hold a referendum on Croatian NATO entry, changes the referendum legislation are again being mulled.

Gregor Golobič and Cveta Zalokar Oražem of Zares pour over referendum legislation (source)

For starters, just a quick update: After a week of signature-collecting, the proponents of the referendum collected only about a 1000 signatures. As you know, they have 35 days to collect 40,000 signatures, meaning they’d have to collect more than 10,000 signatures a week, meaning they’re falling well behind. Provided that an unknown benefactor does not come to their organisational rescue, the SSN’s referendum bid is as good as dead.

However, should they somehow succeed, the results of the referendum would be binding, meaning that the parliament would not be allowed a decision contrary to the results of the referendum sooner than a year from the referendum. This is an important difference from the referendum on regions, which we followed closely on this blog.

As things stand now, there are four different rerefendums possible on a national level: a referendum on constitutional changes, a referendum on international relations (held when Slovenia joined EU and NATO), a consultative (non-binding) referendum and a legislative referendum.

The relative ease of initiating a referendum bid has time and again sparked the debate on whether or not the conditions for a referendum should be toughened. It is generally agreed that of ten-or-so referendums which were held in Slovenia, most if not all were either

-dealing in marginal issues, concerning a limited circle of population
-dictate of a loud minority over a silent majority
-political ploys for circumventing the will of the parliament by a political faction that wouldn’t take no for an aswer

or any combination of the above. Thus calls for a change in legislation have been frequent are ever louder. Especially in recent days, after a marginal party presented some 5000 signatures calling for a referendum and forced Slovene-Croat relations (which aren’t peachy to begin with) to a grinding halt.

A legislative referendum (the subject of today’s post) can be called for the parliament itself, upon the motion either by the government, the proponents of the debated law, a parliamentary club or by ten MPs. In every case the parliament votes on the motion. Additionally, the referendum can be called, without the parliament voting on it, by a third of the MPs, the National Council or by 40,000 voters presenting their verified signatures. The last provisio is also the most unpredictable, as only 2500 non-verified signatures are needed to start the whole procedure, meaning that marginal groups with slightly too much time on their hands can wreck havoc in a sensitive political climate.

It was also because of this that some parties, most notably Gregor Golobič‘s Zares called for changes in the referendum legislation. Specifically, they call for a turnout quorum below which the results would not be valid, a ban on referendum on basic human rights and deciding on one or two days in a year when all outstanding referendums are to be voted on. They also called for toughening rules collecting the initial 2500 signatures.

Pengovsky disagrees with most of what was proposed, both in terms of general principles as well as in terms of specific potential problems adoptions of the proposal would create.

First and foremost, pengovsky thinks this country has had enough of systemic changes aimed at achieving a specific goal. We’ve seen enough of this during Janša’s rule. One of the more blatant example of that was the change in legislation on financing municipalities where the City of Ljubljana was deprived of 57 milion euros overnight just because the wrong man was elected mayor. The referendum legislation might not be perfect, but changing it now, because a bunch of neo-Nazis took advantage of if would be like changing the off-side rule because your defenders are not fast enough.

Secondly, the very idea of a validity quorum, although practical under normal circumstances, is utterly misguided. Since the power to rule rests with the people and it is executed directly by popular vote, it is unfathomable that this power would come into effect only after a critical mass of people would have attended the vote. Imagine that the quorum is set (for argument’s sake) at 40% turnout. This would mean that if 39,9% of people attended the referendum would be invalid and that although they took the trouble to execute their sovereign right to a vote, their vote doesn’t count. On the other hand, if 40% had attended (and, again for argument’s sake, 3/4 of votes would be in favour), then the referendum results would suddenly be valid, although only 30% of all voters voted in favour.

The other side of the coin of course is that as little as 10 percent of the voters can attend (as happened with the referendum on regions). But if the other 90 percent did not bother to attend, who’s to say that the votes of the 10 percent who attended count less? Yes, there were a number of silly referendums like this, with criminally low turnout. But it is not as if those who stayed at home did not have a chance to participate. If they chose not to, then they put the decision on the matter in the hands of their fellow citizens. Period.

Furthermore, a turnout quorum could actually lead to more unnecessary referendums rather than discouraging them. It could become the perfect tool for stalling the decision making process: calling a referendum that you know will fail, thus eliminating any fear of actual legal consequences, but nevertheless making life infinitely more difficult for the other side. Like

Moreover, I can totally imagine a scenario, when elections are nearing and a political or legal impasse is reached (such as, say, should mayors be banned from serving as MPs) which can only be solved on a referendum. A definitive decision would be is needed to ensure that elections were held on time and under such a scenario a turnout quorum would only add to the confusion rather than clear things up.

A variation of the last argument goes for the proposal to have to days a year set to vote on all outstanding referendums. This could do more harm than good, as a particular decision on which a referendum was called could be put on ice for as much as six months. Right now the “incubation” period is around 50 days. Imagine that this provision would already be in place and that (again, for argument’s sake) referendums were to be held on 21 March and 21 September. In case of Croatian NATO entry the referendum could be held only on 21 September, unnecessarily prolonging the issue which needs to be settled as soon as possible.

Banning a referendum on human rights is an altogether different proposal and I support it fully. The trick is, that it is already in place. Namely, under Slovenian system human rights and basic liberties are executed based on the constitution itself and you cannot have a referendum on that. For example, you cannot have a referendum on the freedom of speech. Were you to hold such a referendum, it could easily be defeated in the Constitutional Court. It is true, however, that someone would have to contest such a referendum, because the Court does not have the authority to pro-actively judge legislation, but only when asked to. So, banning a referendum on human rights would have no practical effect.

And lastly, the idea of toughening the rules for collecting the initial 2500 signatures: this could be very well put in place. Namely, if a proponent of referendum seriously expects to collect 40,000 verified signatures in 35 days (verified as in signed in front of an official), then he/she should have no problem in collecting, say, 7000 verified signatures in seven days. The way things stand now, a proponet of a referendum needs only a list with names, addresses and signatures of 2500 individuals which may or may not be of legal age and may or may not be Slovenian citizens. Sure, all signatures are checked against records, but there is no guarantee that someone didn’t just copy the names out of a phone book and faked the signatures. Of all four proposals this one seems the most reasonable.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Referendum legislation was abused time and again, by both sides of the political spectrum. It is time to put a stop to that. But rules concerning execution of direct democracy should be changed carefully and with surgical precision and not cut up with a broad sword

Sunday will mark the 100th day of Borut Pahor‘s government. In case you didn’t know, the “tradition” of giving the government a 100 days to get its shit in order actually started with FDR and his New Deal and given the current economic situation the comparison is not entirely out of place. So what did the new government bring us us in their first hundred days?

ECONOMY

Definitely no FDR-like ramming of anti-crisis legislation through the parliament. Not that one would expect that in this day and age, but for all the talk of ingenious outside-of-the-box solutions, the government provided us with a conventional package of various economic stimuli combined with curbing of public spending. Not that this is bad per se, but if you look around and see that everyone else is doing exactly the same thing and getting nowhere, PM’s optimistic statements about Slovenia making it through the crisis relatively unscratched seem slightly out of place.

The problem of course is that Pahor’s government has little or no leverage over the causes of this crisis so it is largely restricted to soothing its consequences. It would be awfully nice if it could do some restructuring in the mean time, like shifting from work-intensive to high-tech and innovation industry. Indeed that was one of the premises on which this government was elected. Obviously such a quantum leap cannot be achieved in eleven weeks, especially if one takes into consideration the social aspects of the shift, but things will have to start happening in that department as well.

But even as things stand it seems that there was some initial pussyfooting about how to tackle the crisis as if the government was afraid that it would do too much instead of too little. Luckily the crisis will be deeper and longer than anyone initially thought, so there will be plenty of time for unconventional solutions (note the sarcasm).

HOME TURF

Turning to pure politics, the first hundred days of Pahor’s government were pure rock and roll. So far his inauguration speech remains the high point of his tenure which should set off at least some alarm bells. Instead of a clean break with some of the most stale appendages of previous government including (but not limited to) Dimitrij Rupel. Borut Pahor may have adhered to the old adage of keeping your friends close and keeping your enemies closer, but the fallout over Rupel far exceeded the troubles the former foreign minister could have made if he were cut loose.

However, it is somewhat amazing that although – in terms of votes in the parliament – this is not the weakest coalition in history, the government continually seems to be on the brink of collapse. On one hand this has to do with the fact that former PM Janša run an extremely tight ship and although his competence as PM was questionable at best, the control he exercised kept up the appearance of at least mildly capable government. Until things started seriously falling apart. The current government, however, is made of different stuff.

Even though he is the nominal leader of the coalition, Borut Pahor is definitely not the authoritarian his predecessor was. He wants to come across as an assertive kind of guy, but his authority is constantly challenged. Which is alright, since this is a coalition government. The problem is that the PM refuses to acknowledge challenges from within the coalition yet at the same time readily seeks compromise with the opposition, sometimes even before an agreement has been reached within the coalition. Naturally, this does not go down well with the rest of The Quartet (save Karl Erjavec who seems to have learned his lesson) and is fueling rumours of Pahor and Janša looking to form a grand coalition.

However, the danger of this happening seems to have averted, for the time being at least, as the opposition filed an interpellation against interior minister Katarina Kresal for starting to settle the Erased issue. This obviously strengthened the coalition, and put a daylight between them and the opposition. It is not known how long this rekindled love will last, however.

BTW: The Erasure happened on this day, exactly seventeen years ago.

FOREIGN POLICY

Here too the record is definitely not in Pahor’s favour. Much was written on this blog about Slovenia blocking Croatian EU bid and the referendum on Croatian NATO entry, so we won’t go over it again. Both seem to have gone haywire and are a classic example of foreing policy being only an extension of domestic policy. It should be noted, however, that there is one not-so-minor success which PM Pahor did achieve and which shows that Pahor knows his way around diplomatic parquet. He managed to persuade Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi to keep one million euros earmarked for Slovenian minority in Italy in the budget. This might seem an insignificant issue, but until now most Slovenian governments have been incapable of doing anything much for the minority. At the very least Pahor kept things from worsening – and did it in a five-minute chit-chat with Berlusconi in Brussels.

MEDIA

Since pengovsky made a big deal about Janša’s mistreatment of the media it is obvious that he’ll keep a close eye on how the new government goes about it. Minister of culture Majda Širca (media are in her porfolio) initially made some encouraging noises but things have been awfully quiet since. In the mean time, we’ve seen the continuation of some unacceptable pratices on the public television, such as the PM appearing alone in the studio without anyone from the opposition to counter him. Perhaps this will change soon, but if it doesn’t, hopes for RTVSLO becoming the new BBC are not good, even though Pahor publicly said that his government will work towards that goal.

Not that others are helping. Days ago the national radio ran a live talk-show where a journalist hosted two pundits on the Slovenia/Croatia issue. Apparently Ivo Vajgl. chairman of the foreign relations committee was listening and was so annoyed with what he thought was a completely wrong analysis by one of the pundits that he called in and corrected him. According to Vajgl he first called the editor of the show and asked for permission, but that does not make it any better.

Things like that should not happen. Ever. No matter what Vajgl’s motives were he would be well advised to quickly apologize, both publicly as well as personally to the people involved, starting with the journalist and the two pundits. Next, I think the editor should be fired for allowing the call to be put through, because it was he who failed to protect the integrity of the show.

I have much faith in Vajgl and I’m almost positive that this was a momentary lapse of judgement, but the transgression is a big one. An old Slovene adage says that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We can’t have politicians calling in or showing up in studios all over the country uninvited and telling everyone else what’s right and what’s wrong. This is one of the reasons Janša’s lot were voted out of office.

TO SUM IT UP

The first hundred days of Pahor’s government have been intensive. Economic crisis, blocking Croatian EU bid, being set up with the referendum on Croatian NATO entry and an interpellaton of a minister would be a mouthful for any governemnt. But – as I’ve said time and again – the Quartet was elected because it promised to do the job better than the other guys. Hic Rhodos, hic salta.

With this in mind Pahor’s government can get a passing grade for its first hundred days in power, but that’s it. Especially since there are problems which the government and the PM are creating for themselves, like the Rupel thing or coalition parties trying to outfox each other. And then there’s Pahor’s incessant bi-partisanship which somethimes still makes one wonder just who the hell won the elections.

Everyone has the right to compensation for damage caused through unlawful actions in connection with the performance of any function or other activity by a person or authority performing such function or activity within a state or local community authority or as a bearer of public authority.Any person suffering damage has the right to demand, in accordance with the law, compensation also directly from the person or authority that has caused such damage.

Article 26 of the Slovenian constitution (chapter II, human rights and fundamental freedoms)

Branko “Gizmo” Grims in action

Yesterday, Janez Janša’s SDS filed into the parliamentary procedure a proposal for a constitutional law amending the Basic Constitutional Charter on the Sovereignty and Independence of the Republic of Slovenia – the act which set the basic principles of Slovenia’s relation with what was until then Yugoslavia. Among other things this act provided for the continuation of the rule of law after the declaration of independence and also set the basic rules regarding citizenship and/or permanent residence.

SDS, spearheaded by none else than Branko “Gizmo” Grims, the party’s chief attack dog and Goebbels wannabe, want the new constitutional law to provide for two basic things:

-that those Erased who already got the decisions reinstating them to their status of permanent residence be subject to re-examination of their status and

-that none of them should be eligible for any compensation or damages stemming from the erasure and that they were not eligible for any benefits from the time of the erasure to present, making the Erased an exception to Article 26 of the Constitution.

There are a few other SDS-like provisions, my favourite is the one about the public prosecutors being bound to initiate, within one year, re-examination of any and all decisions on legal residence if they are informed in any way, shape or form, of circumstances that could constitute a breach of the law. Meaning that a simple anonymous mail would suffice for the Erased to have to go through the entire ordeal again.

However, this was just the prelude. As you know, SDS also filed an interpellation of interior minister Katarina Kresal for issuing decisions on restoration of status of permanent residence to the Erased. They said that they would withdraw the interpellation if the ruling coalition would support the constitutional law, which – incidentally – must be passed with a double two-thirds majority. First it must be approved by a two-thirds majority on the Committee for Constitution and then by the parliament in a plenary session.

Normally, this manoeuvre wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell. However, given PM Pahor’s chronic bi-partisanship there is real danger of him entertaining thoughs of humouring SDS yet again. Hopefully, he realises that last time around it was he who needed the two-thirds majority whereas today it is SDS which needs those votes.

They shouldn’t be allowed to succeed. While circumventing a decision of the Constitutional court by changing the constitution is legal, this would establish two classes of citizens and quite literally put into the constitution that all people are equal, but some are more equal than others.

PM Borut Pahor has given his full backing to Katarina Kresal. He’d better stick to his guns. Because if that support waivers for as much as a second, his coalition might fall apart sooner than you can say “inauguration speech“. Doubly so if he starts making noises towards cutting yet another deal with Janez Janša.

Some would have you think that he is contemplating the ultimate deal.

Yesterday a year passed since Janez Drnovšek passed away. The good doctor has a beautiful post on this, where she also touches the other hot topic of this week – the Erased. Specifically, she has a lot to say about Mlada Slovenija, the youth organisation of Nova Slovenija.

The late President Drnovšek in Ambrus, December 2006 (source)

A memory-jogging exercise: Nova Slovenija (NSi) was one of the junior partners in the Janez Janša‘s goverment. It held various portfolios, finance and justice being the two most important for today’s post. Nova Slovenija was wiped off the electoral map in last year’s elections. It didn’t even make it past the 4 percent threshold. There are numerous reasons for that, but the bottom line is that the party which only four months ago was the second most powerful party in the coalition has now joined the ranks of Party of Slovene Nation, National Labour Party, Lipa, The Republicans (go figure), The Communist Party, Clean Drinking Water List and many other parties which linger at the outer limits of Slovene political arena.

This might go some way in explaining why the youth organisation of Nova Slovenija (self-described as Christian People’s Party) issued a statement saying that “instead of being given to the Erased, money should be transfered to students who need it more” (Slovene only). Also, it helps to know that ministry of the interior today started issuing decisions to some of the Erased, legalising their status as legal aliens with permanent residence in Slovenia since February 1992.

NSi of course is not the only political party to go apeshit. Had it not been for some other factors (given below), their rant would go almost unnoticed, especially since SDS the largest opposition party (or, some would say, coalition party), filed an interpellation (a bill of impeachment, for those of you in the US) against interior minister Katarina Kresal. The fact that SDS did it on the same day as decision started being issued proves that they were planing ahead (unlike some people…. I’m looking at you, Borut!). However, not to be outdone, KK already issued a rebuttal. And – adding insult to injury – she did it on Facebook, one of the many tools of 21st century SDS still has to master.

Basically, SDS and NSi are saying that decisions are laying a foundation for the Erased to claim massive damages from the state, thus endangering the state of public finances.. Aside from the interpellation, SDS again proved it does understand parliamentary rules and procedures and filed a constitutional law (basically, a change of the constitution), which would prevent the Erased from claiming back-pay for the time their status was unlawfully revoked.

Holy shit! Not even pengovsky is capable of such cynicism! Claiming that someone should not be able to sue the state because the coffers are empty is nothing less than a complete denial of the rule of law. What are we doing here? Saying that you can only sue the state if you are bound to lose? What’s next? Opposition saying that noone should get their overpaid taxes returned because it would endanger public finances?

Guys, I realise you’re the opposition now and that with this PM you can get away with pretty much anything, but… really? Have you no decency? Have you really fallen that low? I mean, curbing basic human rights in the name of economic crisis is just bad sport. It shows you lack both the courage and the intelligence to come up with a persuasive argument against settling the Erased problem, which has been imposed upon more than 25.000 people seventeen years ago!

But this shouldn’t come as a surprise. The political right has ridden the wave of hatred, nationalism and ethnic superiority for quite some time now. in 2006 this exploded in anti-Roma riots in village Ambrus, where Janša’s government succumbed to the mob and evicted a Roma family because the Slovenian majority didn’t want them there any more, although the Roma owned the land. There was pitchforks, riot police, bonfires and the whole shebang.

The Erased are only a big piece of an even bigger mosaic of paranoid nationalism. Rumours have it that a large anti-Muslim gathering is being organised to protest the construction of Ljubljana mosque. And then people ask how come a group of football hooligans with a deficiency in basic reasoning and a strong anti-Croatian sentiment can hold entire NATO by the balls.

On Christmas Day 2006 the late President Janez Drnovšek tried to help the then almost-evicted Roma family by delivering food, clothes and shelter. Regardless of his position and without a shred of respect or decency he was stopped by a mob of local villagers, who forbade him (him, the commander-in-chief!) to deliver the relief material, because they decided that the Roma family, freezing near the burnt remains of their house, doesn’t need the help and would leave soon if denied it.

President Drnovšek took on the mob (video, Slovene only), telling them that although they call themselves Christian, they don’t have a shred of Christianity in them because they would rather leave women and children freeze and starve than help them. Slightly more than two years later, NSi is calling for another group of second-class citizens to be denied their basic human rights. Seems like NSi as well is Christian only in name and not in the spirit.

Apparently, a lot of people learned nothing from President Drnovšek. May whichever god they believe in have mercy on their souls. I, for one, have none left.