The Ombudsman completed the comprehensive review of police procedures related to the implementation of public order tasks in monitoring the unannounced rally in Ljubljana on 5 October 2021. He submitted the report to the Ministry of the Interior for consideration and received the Ministry’s response.  The Ombudsman welcomes the measures of the Ministry and the Police and hopes that his findings and proposals from the final report (which we are publishing in its entirety) will further contribute to ensuring that there will be no cases of disproportionate use of coercive measures against crowds in the future.

As is evident from the report, the Ombudsman pointed out, inter alia, that police powers should be used incrementally and, in this context, also that coercive measures should be considered as measures of last resort. He recommended to the Ministry that it should address his findings in cooperation with the Police and take further measures to ensure proportionality in the use of coercive measures against crowds.

In its response, the Ministry informed the Ombudsman that it would communicate the final report of the Ombudsman on this matter to all police directorates and internal organisational units of the General Police Directorate. The Ombudsman’s report should also be made available to the participants of the training course for the commanders of the Special Police Unit scheduled for December 2022.

Given the Ministry’s assurances that the Ombudsman’s final report would be widely disseminated, the Ombudsman expects that his findings will be made available in particular to the police officers responsible for the implementation of specific police tasks, as well as to those officers who participate in the planning and managing of security during public gatherings and to all others who are responsible within the Police for supervising and preparing statutory acts and implementing regulations in the field of police work.

The Ombudsman welcomes the measures of the Ministry of the Interior and hopes that the findings and proposals from the final report will also ensure that there will be no further cases of disproportionality in the use of coercive measures against crowds. In his view, it is important that coercive measures against crowds are only used when this is absolutely necessary and that they should never be overused.