The implementation of legislation in Slovenia is still inconsistent and a large part of the problems caused to individuals by the state administration is linked to its unsuitable, ineffective and even illegal operations, said Ombudsman Ivan Bizjak at Tuesday's press conference as he presented his report for 1999. Bizjak also expressed that he informed President Milan Kucan that he would stand as a candidate for the position of Ombudsman after his mandate runs out.

The ombudsman claims that the implementation of legislation is inconsistent and that this has considerable consequences for legal security as regulation is changing quickly. Numerous regulations are deficient and discordant with the current legislation and the ombudsman assesses that these gaps are being fixed too slowly. Bizjak warns of a number of bills that are vital for the security of human rights, but have still not been passed. This includes the bill on the payment of war compensation, bill on work conditions, the bill which would manage the assurance of human rights in the field of mental health, the bill on free legal assistance and the bill on the supervision of intelligence and security activities. The ombudsman believes that the problem lies not only in the heavy workload of the parliament, but that the government is too slow in the proposal of certain bills. He expressed his concern about the unconstitutionality found by the Constitutional Court in concern to the bill on victims of war violence and with the bill on the rectification of wrongs, which could be fixed by the passing of a bill on the fund for the payment of war compensation.

In concern to the executive branch, the Ombudsman established that the majority of the problems that concern individuals are a result of unsitable, ineffective and sometimes illegal activity. It is worrying that reforms of the public administration move into an unclear future. The ombudsman came to the conclusion that with the working of the public administration the regulations usually go to the detriment of an individual, especially when the regulations are unclear and deficient. The ombudsman plays a great role in these and in many cases achieves the reversal of such interpretations which are made to the detriment of an individual.

Concerning the legal authority, Bizjak explained that the conditions at individual courts are far from where they should be. "If an improvement is made, we record it and applaud it, but we have established that the conditions at certain courts where a pretty good condition was established actually deteriorated," Bizjak established. The number of unsolved cases has fallen by 5.4 percent from 597,000 at the start of the 1999 to 565,000 cases at the end of the same year. He added that to date he has seen no complete plan for the doing away of the delays at the courts.