Failed Democracy: The Slovenian Patria Case – (Non)Law in Context
Originally published in Slovenian in the journal Pravna praksa, as Matej Avbelj, Zadeva Patria – (ne)pravo v kontekstu, Pravna praksa, No. 26, July 3, 2014.
21 Pages Posted: 6 Jul 2014
Date Written: July 4, 2014
Abstract
The paper discusses the role the Slovenian judiciary and their legal academic counterparts have played in the notorious Slovenian Patria affair. The affair has led to incarceration of the leader of the Slovenian opposition just three weeks before the parliamentary elections, turning the latter into an unfair and illegitimate event, rather than into the feast of democracy. Due to the overall legal and political context in which the affair has been conducted, there is a growing number of evidence that substantiate the belief that right from the beginning the affair has been politically motivated and has been used to instrumentalize, even abuse the institutions of the rule of law for political purposes. With a special focus on the role of the Constitutional Court in this affair, the paper demonstrates the severity of the crisis of the rule of law in Slovenia, a country that is inevitably drifting into the group of the de facto failed constitutional democracies.
Keywords: Democracy, Failed Democracy, Rule of Law, Crisis, State Capture, Judiciary, Free Elections
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