The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 1212 THE SCARS OF THE ERASUREKrivic, the Civil Initiative of the Erased Activists (CIIA) and its chairman, AleksandarTodorović, their many supporters from academia and civil society, and lastbut not least, the NGOs working in the field of human rights, such as AmnestyInternational Slovenia, the Helsinki Monitor, the Peace Institute, and PIC – LegalInformation Center of NGOs.The erased people, activist groups and NGOs carried out a number of actionsand events in an attempt to prevent the erasure from sinking into oblivion;many legal routes were also employed to enable the erased individuals to exercisetheir rights. Matevž Krivic initiated many legal proceedings aimed at reinstatingerased people’s legal status and enabling them to regain the rights of which theywere deprived. Multiple actions were initiated by individual erased persons ontheir own or with the help of legal advisers. Many erased persons regained theirstatus in this way, but not all were successful in struggling with the restrictivelegal requirements. Among the state institutions, the most important role wasplayed by the Constitutional Court, which through its consistent rulings in favorof the erased people, made possible the legal recognition of the violation of theirrights. The delay in resolving this issue was also pointed out by the Human RightsOmbudsman, and in 2004 the Ombudsman’s annual report included a specialreport entitled, “The Issue of the ‘Erased’ in Ombudsman’s Annual Reports.”When in 2003 the erased people won another victory in the ConstitutionalCourt, it seemed that they were only one step from obtaining justice. Unfortunately,this was not to be. Legal experts had opposing views 9 and proposed firsta technical and then a systemic law (both were deficient), which they considereda prerequisite to implementing the ruling of the Constitutional Court. The ConstitutionalCourt requirement that supplementary decisions should be issued tothe erased people was only partly met in 2004, since only 4093 of 8000 peoplealtogether received supplementary decisions. During the years that followed theConstitutional Court ruling and the failure on the part of the government to implementit, the erased people’s movement lost some of its impetus, since it becameobvious that even a victory in the Constitutional Court could be a Pyrrhicvictory in the absence of sufficient political will to implement the ruling. Althoughmany activities were carried out, their protagonists appeared to be insufficientlyinterconnected, and as a result the impact was weak compared to what couldhave been achieved had the actions been better orchestrated.When in 2006 the Open Society Institute expressed its readiness to financiallysupport organized activities concerning the erasure, the Peace Institute proposeda joint approach to this issue through the project entitled, “The ErasedPeople of Slovenia – A Challenge for the Young Nation-State.” Our wish was to connectNGOs working in this field and use project resources to enable a well-deliberatedapproach to the settlement of this issue. The obtaining of financial resources9 The Minister of the Interior at the time, Rado Bohinc, obtained a list of ten legal experts with the intention of vindicatingthe thesis that the Constitutional Court ruling could be implemented only if a “technical law” was first adopted.