Yesterday’s election of four new Constitutional Court judges, Matej Acetto, Klemen Jaklič, Marijan Pavčnik and Rajko Knez, has completed the big staff replacements at the Constitutional Court. Six new judges in six months. Nobody can predict what kind of decisions we can expect from the reformed Constitutional Court. However, all of the new judges are, without doubt, indisputable authorities in their fields. In which direction the court’s balance will shift will be known at the very first initiative for a constitutional review, when the judges will have to make their first decisions.
It is interesting to note that, if he gets re-elected, Slovenian President Borut Pahor will be proposing the entire team of judges at the Constitutional Court. The mandates of three more judges will expire in the following three years
Almost all the top judicial positions have now been reformed. In early autumn Jurij Groznik became the head of the Attorney General’s Office without public pomp. Groznik is now fiercely debating the new concept of the Attorney General’s Office with Justice Minister Goran Klemenčič. It is on course to become a state attorney’s office, while its attorneys would no longer be government officials.
Less than two months ago Damijan Florjančič was appointed as Supreme Court President. We are still waiting for his first decisions. He announced the unification of judicial practice and an improved work organization of courts.
The new head of the Office of the State Prosecutor General will be Drago Šketa. The ambitious first man of the Maribor District State Prosecutor's Office gives priority to the prosecution of commercial crime. He announces more expeditious adjudication and more convictions.
Jolanda Lebar, Radio Slovenija; translated by K. J.