Goran Klemenčič is a Slovenian Minister of Justice who graduated from the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana in 1996 and a year later got his master’s degree at Harvard Law School. Therefore, it would be logical to assume that he is well acquainted with law and understands all basic legal concepts. This is not even remotely the case. Goran Klemenčič fails to understand even the simplest articles in the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia. He demonstrated this when he adopted new Court Rules at the end of last year.
For a better understanding of the statement that Klemenčič even has trouble with basic legal concepts, let us first check what is written in the Constitution. The Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia provides in article 23 that: ‘Court hearings shall be public. Judgements shall be pronounced publicly. Exceptions shall be provided by law.’ Three simple sentences that should be understandable to anyone, especially to lawyers, but it seems they need to be spelt out.
Only a fool would fail to notice that this prohibits the recording of the main hearing
The first paragraph states that recording and photographing are only allowed immediately before the beginning of the main hearing. Only a fool would fail to notice that this prohibits the recording of the main hearing. Despite the clear provision of the Constitution that court hearings shall be public, the Minister of Justice with a master’s degree has only permitted recording before the beginning of the hearing.
And in the second paragraph minister Klemenčič has managed to write even worse nonsense. He has written that in exceptional cases recording can be permitted in writing by the President of the Court. I am convinced that such a failure to grasp law would even keep him from passing an exam of the communist law idol Ljubo Bavcon. As we have established, the Constitution states that only the law can provide exceptions. This means that it is necessary to lay down exceptions for the prohibition of recording, and not to permit recording in exceptional cases. It is a considerable and simple difference. Anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature should understand this.
B. T.