Prispevek k zgodovini političnih sodnih procesov
Contribution to the history of political judicial trials

trials against the groups of Pavel Tepina (1935) and Mirko Bitenc (1947)

Summary/Abstract: In the eternal struggles for power, political judicial processes represent one of the main manifestations of political violence or repression. We can discover various shapes and forms of such processes in almost all historical periods and socio-political systems. We can detect political judicial trials in Slovenia since the beginnings of organised political activities, that is since the second half of the 19th century. In his contribution the author refers to certain important political judicial trials in Slovenia. On the basis of archive sources he thoroughly analyses two of the more characteristic political judicial trials in two distinctively authoritarian periods of the 20th-century Slovenian history. The first example — the trials against Pavel Tepina and 28 co-defendants — belongs into the context of the most severe persecution of communists after the introduction of King Alexanders’ Dictatorship on 6th of January 1929, while the second one — the trials against Mirko Bitenc and 11 co-defendants — took place during the post-war purge, when judicial trials represented one of the main tools for the consolidation of the communist authorities and retaliation against their actual or potential opponents as well as for punishing the Nazi leaders and those who collaborated with the occupiers.

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