Remarks on Television "Echoes" (Tuesday, March 10, 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.
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.
Translated from the Ljubljana newspaper DRUZINA, March 23, 1998.
STATEMENT OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT: