Constitution of Slovenia

Slovenia

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The Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: Ustava Republike Slovenije) is the fundamental law of the Republic of Slovenia. It was adopted by the Slovenian National Assembly on December 23, 1991. The document is divided into ten chapters:

1. General Provisions
2. Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
3. Economic and Social Relations
4. Organisation of the State (under this provision, two of the seats in the National Assembly are reserved, one each to members of the country's Italian and Hungarian national communities)
5. Self-Government
6. Public Finance
7. Constitutionality and Legality
8. The Constitutional Court
9. Procedure for Amending the Constitution
10. Transitional and Final Provisions

The constitution has been amended on four occasions since 1991:

• On July 14, 1997 foreign citizens were granted permission to buy real estate in Slovenia as part of the convergence towards the European Union; this decision was part of the so called Spanish compromise.
• On July 25, 2000 proportional voting system was entered directly in constitution to avoid legal gap that threatened to happen after the National Assembly didn't approve the law about this issue according to somewhat unclear referendum results: three voting systems were proposed to people but none of them won the absolute majority of voters. In a disputed decision, the Constitutional Court of Slovenia ruled that if any law is to be passed, it is to be the law according to the option that got relative majority. In the political events that followed the time was running out and changing the constitution seemed like a good escape from status quo;
• On March 7, 2003 the constitution was changed again to allow Slovenia to enter the European Union and NATO, if that would be the will of the people, which was shown to be the case in the referendum on March 23, 2003.
• On June 23, 2004, three amendments to the Constitution were made. First one included disability as a personal circumstance which prohibits discrimination in the field of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Second one allowed to introduce candidacy quotas for state and local communities' elections in order to promote gender equality. The third one explicitly mentioned the right to a pension as an element of the right to social security.

External links

• Slovenian Constitution - English translation
• Ustava Republike Slovenije - in Slovene