Criminal procedures investigating the suspicious selling of driving licences and safety driving certificates were launched back in 2011. The relevant ministry and agency were also notified about it.

"However the agreement was to ensure an undisturbed process of gathering evidence. First indications showed that we were dealing with a large-scale criminal offence. Our aim was to gather enough material evidence to get all the offenders," said Bojan Žlender, the head of the Transport Directorate at the Ministry for Infrastructure and Spatial Planning.

"With fast-track procedures, increased supervision or changes to the legislation, we judged that we would only endanger the gathering of evidence, which is something we wanted to avoid doing," Žlender explained why there was no reaction from the ministry in this period.

The head of the Slovenian Traffic Safety Agency, Igor Velov, added that his agency was established only in September 2010, and that "the first acting director needed a couple of months to get the agency operating".

Procedures revoking questionable driving licences will be carried out
The time to act has come and officials had three scenarios to choose from: to wait for the finality of court decisions, to reopen proceedings, or to annul decisions – they went ahead with last option. That means that officials can now take away the authorization from organizations and erase them from the registry. A purchased driving licence can be revoked, as well as all certificates acquired under questionable circumstances – forged documents or certificates lacking necessary programs. Because of that legally obtained driving licences may also be brought under question.

"The path is not an easy one to take. All the evidence obtained by the police will be examined in the administrative proceedings. These proceedings will decide in which cases it will be possible to carry out the annulling of the decisions," warned Mr. Žlender. "Professionally speaking I am sad that that the majority of abuses took place in the safety driving programs, for which I personally fought for and introduced to Slovenia," he added.

Legislation changes will follow
"Legislation changes are heading in a direction which will make it more difficult to obtain work authorization. The changes will also enable the law to prevent abuses occurring in the fulfilling of all required conditions, which is the biggest problem. The changes will also see greater responsibility passed on or taken away from professional workers," is how Velov predicted the systemic changes i.e. legislation changes.

"As an agency performing professional supervision we are like a toothless tiger. We believe that new legislation will give us more power," he added.