The Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic of Slovenia reviewed several initiatives in which the initiators expressed their disagreement with the provision of the first paragraph of Article 46 of the Public Sector Integrity Act (Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, No. 45/2010, hereinafter referred to as ZIntPK). Pursuant to this provision, information regarding the incomes and financial status of persons responsible for public tenders are available to the public.

Since the Ombudsman was of the opinion that the provision of the first paragraph of Article 46 of ZIntPK represented excessive encroachment on the privacy and protection of the personal data of the initiators, she lodged a request for a constitutional review of this provision with the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia. We proposed that the Constitutional Court review the constitutionality of the contested first paragraph of Article 46 of the ZIntPK in the part relating to the persons responsible for public tenders, establish its non-conformity with the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia and to repeal it.   

The Ombudsman believes that the weight of the consequences of the encroachment on privacy anticipated in the first paragraph of Article 46 of the ZIntPK, does not justify nor compensate for the pursued goals of the legislator. We thereby substantiate our request for a constitutional review specifically with the following arguments:

1. persons responsible for public tenders are not public persons;
2. the connection between the public nature of the data of persons responsible for public tenders and the pursuit of goals of transparent and economical disposal of public means is not evident;
3. the meaning of the data available to the public under the first paragraph of Article 46 of ZInPK is not clear ; furthermore, the Ombudsman also assesses that
4. the legislator and the established control institutions are already working in pursuit of the mentioned goals even without the involvement of the questionable institute from the first paragraph of Article 46 of ZIntPK, and
5. the responsibilities of persons responsible for public tenders are already established even in labour law legislation, and the public does not play any kind of role in determining responsibilities.  

 
Since the Ombudsman believes that the harmful consequences that might arise from the executing of the unconstitutional provision would outweigh the harmful consequences that could occur by not executing the contested provision, she proposed to the Constitutional Court that it suspend execution of the first paragraph of Article 46 of ZIntPK until its final decision.