The Human Rights Ombudsman held a press conference in the offices of Maribor Urban Municipality on 8 May. Regarding the case of the burning of the Strunjan cross, he spoke about respect for religious feelings. He also spoke about the desire of the government with the consent of the budget users to transform the illegal decision on reducing budget funding into a legal decision, on the suspicion of sexual abuse at schools, on the working conditions of police officers and on the problems of a tenant in a denationalised apartment. He praised the media for its commitment in uncovering injustices and in helping to resolve burning issues in society.

The ombudsman admonished the government for giving the impression through its actions in various cases that it has no development vision. In a letter to the Prime Minister of 22 March 2002 the ombudsman pointed out the unlawfulness of the aforementioned decision, which particularly taking into account the established procedural errors, cannot under the rules of law be put right by the subsequent granting of consent, and any reduction of spending rights must be covered by a new decision based on the correct legal foundation and drafted in line with the procedure provided by law. Here we also give particular emphasis to the fact that the wording "consent for the fulfilment of the decision" does not resolve the fundamental issue of the unlawfulness of the decision. It would be extremely improper to consent to the fulfilment of a decision which is known to be unlawful, so the ombudsman can of course not give his own consent.

The ombudsman insists on the unlawful decision being abolished, and not just annulled, as provided by point 2 of the decision of 4 April 2002, and at the same time points out that not even the potential consent of non-governmental and judicial budget users will remove the unlawfulness of the decision.

The ombudsman emphasises especially that the government's appeal for consent to the unlawful decision is impermissible and legally unacceptable. For this reason he proposes to the Government of the Republic of Slovenia that it abolish decision no. 409-00/2001-67 of 24 January 2002 and of 4 April 2002 in the part that is unlawful, and charges the Ministry of Finance with drafting a new decision on reducing the guaranteed rights to public spending, founded on an appropriate legal basis and in line with the procedure provided by law.

The ombudsman responded to the recent media reports on three cases of suspected sexual abuse at schools. He pointed out that sexual abuse or even the suspicion of sexual abuse must be appropriately dealt with as a matter of urgency. He appealed to parents to listen to their children and to take them seriously, and for children not to fear the consequences at school (revenge on children, low grades and so forth).

He appealed to the Ministry of Education to devote even more attention to the uncovering of such cases, to activate schools inspectors and give precise guidelines to head teachers about uncovering such phenomena and how to deal with them. At the same time it is essential to be aware of the presumed innocence of a suspected person and to avoid stigmatising teachers, he stressed.

The ombudsman called on the Ministry of the Interior to intensify its work in the area of uncovering sexual abuse and to provide additional training for crime investigation officers who work in this area (with the emphasis on interviewing victims). He also stressed that in providing public information it was essential to be consistent in observing the principle of innocence (of the suspect) and in protecting the integrity of the victim.

Last year during the debate of the annual reports in parliament the ombudsman gave notice that with the increase in the number of experts in the field of protecting children’s rights, he would also start dealing more intensively with this problem of sexual abuse. He is now doing exactly this, and is offering help to anyone who can do anything to prevent such cases, in terms of efforts to secure greater protection of victims in the criminal procedure and in terms of intervening in possible irregularities following the appearance of suspicion of sexual abuse (improper attitude/response from the school, police etc), he added at the Maribor press conference.

The ombudsman spoke about the inflaming of religious feelings through the burning of the cross at Strunjan. He reported that following the performance of 6 April he immediately made enquiries about the event and monitored the operations of the competent bodies. Since a little over a week after the event the Koper criminal investigators referred criminal information to the District Public Prosecutor in Koper against photographer Goran Bertok and sculptor Dean Verzel on suspicion of committing the criminal offence of unlawful damage or destruction of things of special cultural or historic importance, the ombudsman did not wish to make any special statement on the case, and decided that he would talk about this at a forthcoming press conference.

He took the opportunity to point out that regardless of the intention, damage was indeed done at Strunjan. Physical damage, and more so emotional damage, since among citizens professing the Catholic faith it aroused feelings of disturbance and intimidation. The fear that arises from this can set up barriers between people that are extremely difficult to remove. And these barriers hinder fruitful interaction and coexistence. In light of this event he cautioned that in doing anything one must always keep in mind the fact that the boundary of one’s rights ends where the boundary of another’s rights begins.

At the press conference the ombudsman also spoke about the urgent need to improve the working conditions at certain police stations for the effective functioning of police officers (http://www.varuh-rs.si/cgi/teksti-slo.cgi/Show?_id=policistidelrazmere). He also spoke about this in the Studio at 17.00 on 17 May.

At the close of the conference the Human Rights Ombudsman also touched upon the problems of a tenant in a denationalised apartment. Details can be found on the web page www.varuh-rs.si/cgi/teksti-slo.cgi/Show .