The Slovenian public has witnessed another attempt by the outstanding journalist Eugenija Carl, the Slovenian Woman of the Year in 2013, to spread falsehoods, tell lies and misrepresent facts.
Postmen might know how to do their job, but the same cannot be said for Eugenija Carl – at least based on Tuesday’s posts on social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, in which Eugenija Carl provided her followers with a piece of news that has been revealed to be fake – she claimed that the litigation between her and the leader of the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), Janez Janša, had been concluded. However, this is completely false – the court has still not addressed the appeal, meaning that Janez Janša does not need to pay the compensation of €6,000. Did Eugenija Carl do this intentionally or is she really not acquainted with the basics and therefore does not know what a final judgement is?
It is not that we are not used to false statements, misrepresentations of facts and intentional misleading of the public by the Slovenian Woman of the Year in 2013, who is a journalist at the public broadcaster RTV. However, we had never imagined that she would stoop as low as to lie about the conclusion of a case that is clearly still pending. It is even harder for us to believe that this news has been covered by Primorske novice without them even verifying its validity or asking the other side to comment, even though this newspaper should first and foremost respect the provisions of the Media Act. They should approach every story with a critical distance, regardless of who is the main actor – a journalist, a public figure, a politician or any other citizen of the Republic of Slovenia.
The eKoper portal has therefore turned to Janez Janša’s advocate, Franci Matoz, for additional information. He has explained that the case is far from closed. According to him, the decision on the dismissal of the appeal, which was received by both parties on Tuesday 27 March, refers solely to the appeal in which Janez Janša had advised the local court of Velenje to reinstate the case due to a failure to meet the deadline for answering the lawsuit. It does not refer to the appeal against the default judgement, which the court has not yet addressed. Only after that will the judgement become final, and the case will be closed.
Janša was not served the lawsuit – the reason was a letter box that was too small
“The decision which was served to her makes it clear that the ruling of the Velenje court only refers to the proposal to reinstate the case in connection with the failure to meet the deadline for answering the lawsuit and that an appeal has been filed against the default judgement which has not yet been addressed by the court,” explained Matoz. What also needs to be addressed is why the default judgement had been delivered in the first place. The default judgement, in which Janša was ordered to pay €6,000 in damages to Eugenija Carl, was delivered by the court because Janša had apparently failed to answer the lawsuit. However, this is not the case, which was revealed during the review of the judgement – the complaint had not been served to Janez Janša at all due to the insufficient size of the letter box.
The case has not become final and the proceedings have still not ended. The contents of the appeal, which is apparently based on a small letter box, must first be addressed by the higher court in Velenje.
Eugenija is no stranger to falsehoods
These new lies from Eugenija Carl remind us of events at the end of 2012. It was a time of mass protests against the Slovenian government and the state which occurred in several Slovenian towns, including Koper. The protests were also covered by the valiant RTV journalist Eugenija Carl, who apparently saw the events at the three relatively poorly attended rallies very distortedly. Viewers were misled with mentions of an intense storm that had never happened, fat rain drops that had left no trace in the puddles and an intense cold that could not be felt. Even though the intense anger of most participants had mostly been aimed at national policies and at political and other elitism and clientelism, Carlova decided to incite and reported that people had clearly protested against the Koper mayor, Boris Popovič. The truth was completely different – only a single protester carried a picture of the mayor.
Moreover, she only captured three random protesters on camera – Vladimir Savarin, known to the public of Koper as a fighter for private berthing who is unable to find a common ground with the Koper mayor (among others), as well as Barbara Verdnik and Franc Jurij, who probably do not need an introduction. Let us merely mention that it is hard to consider them random protesters without remembering their red political pedigree and long-standing efforts to completely incapacitate the current local authorities.
Only a few months later, there were reports about a disagreement between Eugenija Carl and the successful owner of a fashion agency in New York, Nina Lubarda Stropnik. At the request of Eugenija Carl, the latter professionally photographed her son and later also sent her the exquisitely edited photos. Eugenija Carl confirmed that she had received the photographs in writing, expressing her satisfaction with them. But then things changed – Eugenija Carl all of a sudden started doubting the existence of the Nina Lubarda Model Management agency and began spreading lies and insulting comments about how she had never received the photos on web portals and forums. As the media reported at the time, this was supposedly a big lie, which is also proven by an e-mail sent to the agency by Eugenija Carl.
Many other similar stories exist, but we will not mention them at this point. Instead, let us discuss how this year her actions even exceeded the threshold of tolerance of her journalist colleagues, more precisely one of the most reputable journalists in Slovenia Rosvita Pesek, who publicly commented that she has had enough of Eugenija Carl, her actions and her criticisms of other colleagues. Rosvita Pesek herself had been the target of Eugenija Carl’s attacks, all because she had addressed a question about the resignation of the Slovenian prime minister to the leader of the opposition, Janez Janša, who is, as we have already mentioned above, not much to Eugenija Carl’s liking.
In what normal country would a normal journalist criticise asking the head of opposition to comment on the resignation of the prime minister. In what normal country would an ordinary journalist have the right to publicly badmouth the editorial choices of her broadcaster? And in what normal country could a journalist without any restrictions publish so much false information? As the renowned political analyst Sebastjan Jeretič mentioned in a recent comment: “Nowhere. Anywhere else, she would get a kick in the butt and a dismissal.
e-koper