The complainant as the injured party asked for the help of the Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic of Slovenia (Ombudsman) due to lengthy criminal proceedings. The Ombudsman found that in these criminal proceedings no procedural acts were performed in almost four years. This violated the complainant’s constitutional right to trial without undue delay as stipulated by Article 23 of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia. After the Ombudsman’s intervention, the Ljubljana District Court issued an order for priority resolution of these criminal proceedings, including the deadline by which a main hearing must be scheduled and a decision made.

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The complainant filed a complaint against the suspect who supposedly caused her serious bodily harm in 2016. She also filed a civil suit against her. She has received no information regarding the criminal proceedings in several years, while the civil suit was suspended in November 2022 with the court’s decision until the case of the related criminal case is resolved with a final judgement.

After the Ombudsman's inquiry regarding the time frame of the criminal proceedings in question, with which the Ombudsman also informed the court that the speedy handling of this criminal case due to its connection with the civil proceedings is of particular importance to the complainant, the court announced that on 18/05/2017 the District State Prosecutor's Office in Ljubljana filed a motion that individual investigative acts be carried out against the defendant due to the well-founded suspicion that she has committed a criminal act. After completing the investigative actions, the competent prosecutor's office filed an indictment against the defendant, against which the defendant filed an objection on 11/01/2019, which was rejected as unfounded by the decision of 22/02/2019. On 01/04/2019, the president of the senate scheduled a preliminary hearing, which was held on 09/05/2019, at which the defendant pleaded not guilty, and her defence counsel proposed the exclusion of inadmissible evidence. The defence counsel's proposal was granted by the decision of 21/05/2019, as a result of which the case was assigned to another district judge on 09/08/2019 for resolution, which, due to the resolution of over 130 pending criminal cases, including remand cases (which are resolved as a matter of priority), it was not possible to schedule the main hearing in the criminal case in question. Therefore, on 26/04/2023, this case was again reassigned to another deliberating judge, who informed the president of the court that the main hearing is expected to be announced by the end of this year. The Vice-President of the Ljubljana District Court, by order dated 18/08/2023, also ordered that the criminal case in question be treated as a matter of priority and that the main hearing be called and conducted within 60 days of the order being issued.

The explanations received from the court show that there was clearly an unjustified delay in the consideration of criminal case I K 22569, since no procedural act took place in it for almost four years. According to the Ombudsman’s information, the complainant did not use the legal remedies prescribed by the Protection of Right to Trial without Undue Delay Act (ZVPSBNO), in relation to the violation of the right to a trial without undue delay, while the court also did not state that the president of the court, in accordance with the provisions of the Rules of Court in this criminal case, which, on the basis of the first indent of Paragraph 2 in connection with Paragraph 4 of Article 289 of the Rules of Court, is considered as judicial backlog, would take any additional action.

The Ombudsman considers as positive the fact that after the Ombudsman’s intervention, the court did indeed issue an order on the priority consideration of the criminal case in question and on regular reporting to the president of the court on the progress in the consideration of this case.

The Ombudsman deemed this complaint founded and his intervention successful. 15.2-9/2023