Slovenia

Abstract

The Act on Protection of the Right to Fair Trial is a natural consequence of the main problem that the Slovenian legal system is facing — long and ineffective litigations. Due to hyperinflation of actions brought against Slovenia at the European Court for Human Rights, the Slovenian legislator introduced an “emergency act” which will try to limit further complaints in Strasbourg. Of course the enormous number (around 700 pending claims) of actions is based on art. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The right to fair trial based on this provision includes, according to continuous legal practice, also the right to speedy and effective civil litigation. This crucial element of civil law in general also became one of the most important political issues, especially from the perspective of who is responsible for this overwhelming situation and how to deal with it. In my opinion, the major factor can be traced to the complaint procedure and even broadly, to the role of attorneys in litigation. The Civil Procedure Act namely foresees complaints against the first instance judgments in a very liberal way which is connected to the entrepreneurial logic of attorneys. There is probably not even one civil litigation action in which parties are represented by attorneys that is not “tested” at the appellate court. Most complaints are basically “shots in the dark” because the appellate courts are obliged to test the first instance judgment ex officio (of course if a complaint was brought). Logically an attorney has consequently nothing to lose by bringing a complaint — either way he is going to “win” and clients (who lost in the first instance) are keen on complaints.