Residents of Kebetova Street in the municipality of Medvode contacted the Ombudsman with a complaint about its insufficient information about the change in the traffic regime on Ostrovrharjeva Street in August last year. In their complaint, the complainants expressed general disagreement with the changes,^[1] and in particular, they criticised the municipality for insufficient information for the residents. The complainants first wrote to the municipality in August 2024 with a request to reinstate the previously valid traffic regime, but since they did not receive a response, they addressed a letter to the mayor of the municipality in September of the same year. They did not receive a response to any of their letters.

The Ombudsman contacted the municipality with an inquiry and a simultaneous proposal to respond to the complainants in writing, if it had not done so by then. In its response, the municipality informed the Ombudsman in more detail about the background to the change in the traffic regime on the road in question, primarily intended to ensure a higher level of child protection in traffic in a way that enables safe and independent arrivals to school. In relation to the fundamental allegation of alleged failure to inform, it announced that several meetings and field visits were to be held from May 2023 to September 2024 with the participation of several relevant stakeholders, including a representative of the local community, who was to commit at the meeting in June 2023 to informing the local community and informing about any concerns and needs for special meetings with the local community. The municipality is to inform all stakeholders in the area about all of this, and all information is to be published on the website of the Medvode Primary School, on the website of the municipality and in the local newsletter.

The Ombudsman could not dispute the municipality's intention to ensure the highest possible level of child safety in traffic, nor did the Ombudsman assess the professional validity of the changes to the traffic regime from the perspective of its competences. The Ombudsman also had no reason to doubt that the municipality, based on its own statements, ensured that the relevant public was adequately informed about the planned change through the means of public information. Nevertheless, regardless of the municipality's more extensive explanations, the question of its responsiveness to the complainants' letters still remained open. Namely, every authority is expected to respond in writing to the letters received in a timely manner, in the spirit of the principle of good governance and the public's right to participate in the management of public affairs. The chosen method of communication with the local community solely through a representative of the local community may be convenient, in the Ombudsman's opinion, but it is questionably effective, since in the Ombudsman's practice to date, there have been cases where relevant information often does not reach the relevant addressees on time or does not reach them at all. The Ombudsman therefore once again suggested to the municipality that it respond to the complainants' letters, which the municipality followed.

We considered the complaint to be justified, as we doubt that the municipality would have responded to the complainants without the Ombudsman's intervention. We expect it to regularly respond to received letters in the future even without the Ombudsman's intervention.18.4-12/2024

[1] For example, changing two-way traffic to one-way traffic, extending the route due to changing the previous exit from Kebetova Street, and other inconveniences.