Slovenia launched around 62,000 proceedings for breaching the corona regulations in force from March 2020 to May 2022. A total of more than 5.7 million euros in fines were imposed.
Now Slovenia’s parliament has passed a law abolishing the sentences. Payees will get their money back, including administrative costs. This was reported by the Austrian “Krone”. The ongoing activities will be stopped completely.
Social Democratic Justice Minister Dominika Zwark Pippen said the state accepts the moral responsibility of the law. They want to make amends for the injustice done to citizens through “abuse of the criminal law and unconstitutional and excessive interference with human rights”. “Let this be a lesson to us so that such an incident does not happen again.”
Background to the change of course: Slovenia’s corona policy changed under a right-wing conservative prime minister. Victor Orban-Made by Genes Janza. A coalition under social liberal Robert Gollop is at the helm from April 2022.
Political watchers say the 65-year-old lost his office because of Jansa’s strictures. Many Slovenians were outraged by the corona measures, some of which were later declared unconstitutional by courts. Others saw the regulations, including the ban on demonstrations, as an attempt to undermine the rule of law.
The situation in Germany
Christine Aschenberg-Dugnus, parliamentary director of the FDP parliamentary group and health expert, filed a case against the curfew at the Federal Constitutional Court at the time. When asked by BILD, he said: “In retrospect, many measures were disproportionate and ineffective. Unlike Slovenia, our Federal Constitutional Court does not classify measures as fundamentally unconstitutional. I therefore hold that recovery of penalty is not legally possible.
Meanwhile, a new corona vaccination campaign has started in this country. The products are intended to protect against Omicron offshoot XBB.1.5. However, there is criticism. Because: Six cans in bottles from manufacturer Biontech/Pfizer. Because only the elderly and those with previous illnesses are allowed to be vaccinated, there is a risk of large-scale obsolescence of vaccines, according to critics. The Moderna product comes in individual sizes.
(IAS)
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