On Monday, Minister of the Interior Aleš Hojs got the first reports of the Acting Director-General of the Police, Andrej Jurič, from the revisions of some of the most high-profile investigation cases of the National Bureau of Investigation, but for now, he has not been able to provide any substantive findings. If necessary, the reports will be periodic.
Minister of the Interior Aleš Hojs ordered a revision of the investigations of the Bank of Slovenia from 2012, the case of alleged abuse of Pro Plus’ dominant position in television advertising, the criminal complaint against the NLB bankers in the Farrokh case which was rejected last year, the alleged corruption in healthcare in the case of purchasing the vascular stents, and the case of investigation of suspected abnormalities in the children’s cardiac programme, STA reports.
The Ministry explained that Minister Hojs decided for the revisions because the proceedings, which the prosecution concludes with the dismissal of charges, may also be the result of poor work of the police, and not only the innocence of the suspects. The National Bureau of Investigation had received the most criticism precisely because of the aforementioned cases, and the investigations will show what actually happened.
The General Police Administration has already explained that the supervision group, which also carries out other inspections in other organizational units of the criminal police, and which is already implementing the expert supervision over the work of the National Bureau of Investigation, which was planned in December last year with the annual supervision plan, will also check police activities in cases of investigations, where there is suspicion of committing certain criminal offences. They will check the actions of the police officers after the perception of the suspicion of committing criminal offences, whether or not the police officers fully informed the competent prosecutor about the suspicions, and whether they acted in accordance with his policies.
The police union says that the instructions are inadmissible, however, according to the lawyers, they are perfectly legal
Among the cases that will be looked at are also those that have already been taken over by the state prosecutor in the past, which is something certain experts have already been critical of. The Police Union of Slovenia has prepared an expert legal opinion, which shows that the guidelines and the instructions of the Minister are legally inadmissible. However, according to legal experts, the investigations are perfectly legal. A significant part of the guidelines refers to the fact that the legal framework, internal regulations, organizational resources, and human resources need to be improved in order for the National Bureau of Investigation to be able to operate more efficiently, as we have previously reported.
Sara Kovač