Verica Trstenjak

Verica Trstenjak Source: Court of Justice of the European Union

Verica Trstenjak (*1962) is Slovene Doctor of Laws, and since 2006, the Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg.

Early legal work

Verica Trstenjak passed her bar exam in 1987 and obtained her doctor's degree at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana in 1995. She worked as a head of the legal service at the Ministry of Science and Technology between 1994 and 1996, and as State Secretary at the same ministry between 1996 and 2000. In 2000 she held a post of a Secretary-General of the Slovenian Government.

Work in professorships

Later, Trstenjak became a professor at the Law Faculty in Maribor.

Verica Trstenjak pursued her doctoral studies at the University of Zurich (Universität Zürich), plus the Institute of Comparative Law of the University of Vienna (Institut für Rechtsvergleichung der Universität Wien), the Max Planck Institute for Private International Law in Hamburg (Max-Planck-Institut für Internationales Privatrecht), and the Free University of Amsterdam (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). In 1996 she became a professor for theory of law and State and private law, and in 2006 a full professor for civil and European law. She was a visiting professor at the University of Vienna (Universität Wien) and University of Freiburg (Germany) (Universität Freiburg) and at the Bucerius School of Law in Hamburg. Until 2006 she was a member of the Study Group on a European Civil Code. She published more than 100 legal articles and several books on European and private law; she gives speeches at numerous international conferences in Slovenia and abroad, as well as at different universities (e.g. Hamburg, Vienna, Heilderberg, Münster, Osnabrück).

Societies and honors

She is a member of the editorial board of a number of legal periodicals in Slovenia and abroad. She is a member of a number of lawyers' associations, including the Slovene Association for European Law (Slovensko društvo za evropsko pravo), where she is president, the Gesellschaft für Rechtsvergleichung, and the International Academy of Comparative law. She is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board at the Faculty of Law of the University of Vienna. In 2003 she won a prize of the Association of Slovene Lawyers, 'Lawyer of the Year 2003'.

Work as EU judge

She worked as a judge at the Court of First Instance of the European Union, from 7 July 2004 to 6 October 2006, and has been Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union since 7 October 2006. As Advocate General, she pleaded against the system of fixed prices of books in Austria (case C-531/07, Fachverband der Buch- und Medienwirtschaft v. LIBRO); according to her proposal the Court of Justice of the European Union judged that the German federal legislation, which limits the entitlement to paid annual leave, is not in accordance with the EU law (joined cases C-350/06, Schultz-Hoff, and C-520/06, Stringer). She also advised the Court of Justice of the European Union in several important cases regarding consumer protection, such as the German case C-489/07, Messner, where the question was whether - in respect of distance contracts - in the case of a revocation by a consumer, a seller may claim compensation for the value of the use of the consumer goods delivered, or the Belgian case C-205/07, Gysbrechts, where the Court of Justice of the European union judged upon her proposal that the Belgian law according to which in distance selling, the vendor cannot require the consumer’s credit card number, is not in accordance with the EU law.

External links

• Court of Justice of the European Union
• Slovene Association for European Law
• Universität Zürich
• Institut für Rechtsvergleichung der Universität Wien
• Max-Planck-Institut für Internationales Privatrecht
• Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
• Universität Wien
• Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
• Bucerius Law School
• Gesellschaft für Rechtsvergleichung
• International Academy of Comparative law