Former Prime Minister, Marjan Šarec, reprimanded the current Minister of the Interior, Aleš Hojs, claiming that he should have known about the former Secretary of State, Franc Breznik’s offence, so we sent a few questions to the Ministry. Initially, they explained to the Nova24TV web portal that, in accordance with legal regulations, the director of the Police informed the Minister about the matters which, in his opinion, could provoke a greater response from the public, but he did not inform him of the aforementioned case. Minister Hojs also received a request from the weekly Mladina to forward all reports of the Operation and Communication Centres from around the time when former Secretary of State, Mr. Breznik, was stopped by the Police, which he could not do due to the protection of personal data, but he also revealed that, according to many indications, it seems possible that this weekly has its own “correspondent” within the Police itself. Hojs also revealed that the former Minister Boštjan Pokluar received reports from the Operation and Communication Centres in their entirety, meaning, in a non-anonymized form!
The former Prime Minister who resigned, Marjan Šarec, is not doing so well in the opposition, and often reveals things he should have kept for himself, especially when it comes to controversial matters. Among other things, he also attacked the Minister of the Interior Aleš Hojs and said that as the Minister, he should have known about the former Secretary of State, Franc Breznik’s offense. We, therefore, sent a few questions to the Ministry of the Interior and Minister Hojs himself, and first asked him if it was true that the Ministry of the Interior has the authority to be notified of such matters.
Hojs received a request from Mladina to send them all of the reports from the Operation and Communication Centres of the Police, from around the time when Secretary Breznik was stopped by the police
Initially, the Ministry explained to the Nova24TV web portal that in accordance with legal regulations, the director of the Police should inform the Minister about matters which could provoke a greater response from the public, but the director does this based on his own assessment: “As we have already explained several times, the director of the Police did not inform me about the event (Breznik’s offense),” the Minister replied. In the following days, when Hojs received a request from the weekly Mladina, which requested that all reports from the Operation and Communication Centers from around the time when Secretary Breznik was stopped be sent to them, which could not be forwarded due to personal data protection, he informed the director of the Police on their request.
The weekly Mladina apparently has its own “correspondents” within the police ranks
The director of the Police explained to Hojs that these reports could not be forwarded, unless every piece of information that could reveal a person’s identity would be blacked out: “He also told me that some time ago, when announcing internal changes to the personnel, he was immensely surprised when he found out that approximately 20 minutes after announcing the change, the Police received a question from the same weekly, asking if the information about his intention to make the change is true.” Apparently, the weekly Mladina has its own “correspondents” within the police ranks.
Poklukar was receiving reports from the Operation and Communication Centres in non-anonymized form
We also asked Hojs if, as the Minister, he even receives the reports from the Operation and Communication Centres. “When former Prime Minister Marjan Šarec made a public statement, saying that he does not believe that I knew nothing about the event, his doubt raised the question of what does the former Prime Minister think I should know?” Hojs said, wondering if Šarec’s Minister of the Interior, Boštjan Poklukar, told him what Hojs should and should not know, and also wondering whether the procedures of notification were different before his arrival.
Therefore, Hojs ordered that the method of informing the former Minister be checked, and, according to his explanation, he was shocked: “The Police informed me that the former Minister had received the reports from the Operation and Communication Centres in a non-anonymized form. So with full names of the people, types of events that took place – in short, he had been receiving the reports that the Centres otherwise send to the director of the Police, in their entirety.”
When Hojs explicitly asked why was it that he had not been receiving these reports as well, which, as he pointed out, he did not even want to receive, he was informed that this is what was ordered to the Police and that the decision, which was made by the management of the Police on March 12th, 2020, included a change in the set of the recipients of these reports, where, among other things, the Minister was removed from the list of the recipients. Hojs also told Nova24TV web portal that an internal check had been ordered, regarding the events.
Once the results are known, we will inform the readers.
Rok Krajnc