Recommendations for the year 2007
The National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia, pursuant to Articles 272 and 111 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly (Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, no. 92/07, official consolidated text), at their session held on 29 January 2009, when reading the Annual Report of the Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic of Slovenia for 2007, adopted the following
R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S
I. Constitutional rights
1. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall ensure better participation of experts and other interested stakeholders when adopting regulations or during the legislative procedure.
2. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall employ appropriate measures to ensure more effective protection of personal information and privacy.
3. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall draw up statutory solutions defining the rules on media reporting about children, which will enable more effective sanctioning of mass media, editors, and journalists in cases of intentional and severe violations against individuals regarding respect for privacy and personality rights, particularly when sensationally disclosing children’s privacy and family tragedies in the media.
4. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall ensure mechanisms and take measures for more effective prevention and sanctioning of hate speech.
5. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia and other public authorities shall ensure consistent implementation of Constitutional Court decisions.
II. Discrimination
6. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall take measures ensuring more effective protection mechanisms against discrimination. In accordance with its responsibilities, the Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall also ensure that the prohibition of discrimination in the legal system of the Republic of Slovenia is more consistently respected.
7. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall examine the necessity of amending statutory provisions regulating the issue of representative organizations of the Roma community and their representation on municipal councils.
8. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall regulate the obligation of reasonable accommodation to people with disabilities in all spheres of social life in an appropriate manner.
9. At the interministerial level, the Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall ensure sufficient resources for measures intended to provide better housing conditions for the Roma as well as better conditions for preschool and primary education of Roma children.
III. Limitation of personal freedom
10. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall ensure consistent respect for human rights and international standards when treating persons deprived of liberty.
11. The ministry responsible for justice and the institutions intended for serving prison sentences shall, in cooperation with the ministry responsible for health, ensure that every person whose liberty is limited is appropriately medically examined when there are physical injuries caused by the use of coercive measures. Such medical examinations shall also include an assessment of conformity between the alleged ill treatment and the findings of an objective medical examination.
12. The minister responsible for health shall, in conformity with the minister responsible for justice, specify healthcare institutions in which protective compulsory psychiatric treatment measures may be carried out as soon as possible.
13. The relevant ministries and other public authorities must adopt more effective measures for social rehabilitation of offenders that have served their sentences.
IV. Justice
14. Judicial authorities and the ministry responsible for justice shall jointly endeavour to reduce and eliminate court backlogs in accordance with the court backlog elimination project; judicial authorities shall consistently endeavour to ensure quality trials within reasonable time limits.
15. The ministry responsible for justice shall examine the possibility of a normative regulation for notifying the court with jurisdiction about bringing a person to an institution to serve a prison sentence so that the person’s hearing is carried out without delay in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act.
V. Administrative matters
16. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia and the responsible ministry shall immediately address the implementation of decisions of the Constitutional Court (U-I-284/94 as of 4 February 1999 and U-I-246/02-28 as of 3 April 2003) concerning persons whose names were removed from the permanent residence registry on 26 February 1992; that is, by issuing the remaining supplementary decisions and by drafting appropriate statutory solutions to regulate the status of persons that were not entitled to receive decisions directly on the basis of the Constitutional Court decisions.
17. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia and the responsible ministries shall ensure the completion of all denationalization proceedings with appropriate mechanisms.
18. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia and the responsible ministry shall ensure the settlement of open issues pertaining to property damage from the Second World War.
19. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall ensure local communities total professional and procedural assistance when resolving property issues pertaining to the public good.
20. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia and the responsible ministries shall ensure smooth and effective functioning of inspection services.
VI. Environment and spatial planning
21. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia and the responsible ministry shall ensure procedures that are open to all stakeholders for adopting spatial-planning documents, particularly from the aspect of environmental protection.
22. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall ensure the adoption of regulations providing for acceptable environmental emissions, particularly regarding odours and noises that often compromise the right to live in a healthy living environment.
VII. Housing issues
23. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall, in cooperation with local communities, implement solutions for providing housing units to the most socially disadvantaged individuals.
24. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall re-examine the effects of and propose necessary changes to housing subsidies with the intention of ensuring equal opportunities for all when searching for suitable housing.
25. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall draw up statutory amendments or measures, harmonized between ministries, to more effectively deal with housing issues, particularly with regard to young families, elderly persons, socially disadvantaged groups, and families that were not ensured an equal position in dealing with housing issues by the housing legislation adopted after 1991.
VIII. Employment relationships
26. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall reinforce the activities of inspection services to ensure more effective prevention from and sanctioning of infringements of the labour code, particularly regarding the increasing number of workplace harassment cases and violations of workers’ rights.
IX. Pension and disability insurance
27. The ministry responsible for labour, family, and social affairs shall, within the framework of its responsibilities, exert influence to shorten procedures for exercising rights arising from the pension and disability insurance schemes as well as for better provision of information to insured persons.
28. The ministry responsible for labour, family, and social affairs shall, within the framework of its responsibilities, ensure smooth exercising of rights to partial widower’s pensions to rightful claimants within the pension and disability insurance schemes for veterans.
29. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall examine the need to introduce the institution of an advocate for elderly persons’ rights.
X. Healthcare and health insurance
30. The ministry responsible for health shall examine the issues related to insured persons’ access to healthcare services and shall take measures to discover and prevent irregularities when implementing such services.
XI. Social care
31. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall take measures to prevent social problems and ensure equal opportunities and conditions for the personal development of every individual.
32. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall endeavour to introduce objective criteria for regulating entitlement to social assistance and shall re-examine the rules for establishing the “poverty threshold”.
33. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall draw up a Long-Term Care and Long-term Care Insurance Act.
XII. Protection of children’s rights
34. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall ensure more effective conduct of child custody award proceedings, in which the interest and protection of children and their rights must be at the forefront.
35. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall draft a Family Code offering solutions to help solve children’s rights issues.
36. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall examine the possibility of introducing the institution of a children’s rights advocate.
37. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia shall ensure more effective addressing of issues pertaining to educating Roma children and a comprehensive implementation of rights for children with special needs.
XIII. Other issues
38. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia or responsible ministries shall ensure appropriate staffing, physical, and other working conditions to all institutions that are directly or indirectly connected to exercising human rights.
No. 000-04/08-3/26
Ljubljana, 29 January 2009
EPA 2256-IV
National Assembly
of the Republic of Slovenia
Signed by: Pavel Gantar
President of National Assembly