Slovenian Association of Former Owners of Expropriated Property (SAFOEP)

CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE STATUS OF

 DENATIONALIZATION -- RESTITUTION

IN THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA

MAY 2002

The reform of property ownership and other measures connected to it is foremost among urgent democratic reforms Slovenia has to carry out during the transition time while waiting to join the European Union.

The new Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia, adopted on June 25, 1991, abolished the socially owned property which included all private property that the government confiscated, nationalized or otherwise forcibly seized at the end of World War II.

The adoption of the Law on Denationalization (Restitution) on November 29, 1991, and the application of the Law on Penal Sanction provided the basis for the process of returning property to all who qualified under these two laws. The Law on Restitution also requires that - whenever possible - the property is returned in kind; when this is no longer possible, it provides for reparation either by an equivalent piece of property or by fair (reasonable) financial compensation.

The expropriated owners and their lawful heirs find, time and again, that because of repeated intentional, unlawful and even unconstitutional changes of the law for the worse, its implementation is constantly being slowed down. The already slow, as well as selectively applied and unequitable restitution processes have now, after ten years, become even more dilatory.

The responsibility for the poor results in restitution of the property rests squarely on all three branches of the government: legislative, executive and judiciary.

An important influence in resisting the return of property is exerted by those privileged supporters of the former communist regime who are still enjoying and using the confiscated property as well as by those individuals who work covertly and exert influence stronger than both the adopted laws and the Constitution.

The opponents of property restitution also have the support of the media which, with rare exceptions, are owned and controlled by a single political constellation.

The influence of the opponents of property restitution is obviously stronger than the recommendations of Council of Europe Resolution No. 1096 of June 27, 1996, which clearly and unequivocally stated that it is necessary to dismantle the heritage of former totalitarian regimes – nazism, fascism and communism.

The conduct of the opponents of property restitution manifest elements of torture and inhuman treatment (Article 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia) as the expropriated persons are mainly senior citizens who for the past ten years struggle to assert their human rights in their own country.

In addition, numerous other articles of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia are being violated, such as Article 14 (equality before the law), Article 21 (protection of human integrity and dignity). Article 25 (the right to legal protection), Article 26 (the right to compensation for damages sustained), Article 33 (the right to private property), and more.

The following para-statal institutions of the Republic of Slovenia should be included among the opponents and protractors of property restitution:

·        Slovenian Indemnity Company (Slovenska odškodninska družba d.d.), a financial organization established by a special law for the settlement of obligations arising from the property restitution claims by issuing bonds when the property cannot be returned in kind. The company has been set up as a state service for paying out the compensation; instead it is assuming the role of a privileged party in the restitution proceedings further reducing the value set by official appraisals and delays the issuing of bonds. The bonds have no state guarantee.

·        Fund of Agricultural Lands and Forests (Sklad kmetijskih zemljišč in gozdov) is the agency responsible for the return of these properties but, as shown by the records, has been so efficient in obstructing the process that the smallest percentage of the returned property can be found among the agricultural lands and forests. Instead of returning the properties to their owners the fund is renting them to any interested party.

·        The Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Slovenia {Ministrstvo za notranje zadeve RS) has for ten years been conducting in-depth investigations into the citizenship status of the claimants which is a prerequisite for the claim to qualify. These protracted investigations of about 1,000 cases are taking an enormous amount of time although all the relevant documentation has been submitted to the Ministry of the Interior.

·        The State Defender (Državno pravobranilstvo) as protector of government property, represents one of the greatest obstacles in the property restitution as it interferes with automatic and incessant appeals even in cases where the decisions are clear cut. Moreover, the State Defender ignores all lawfully prescribed time limits and deadlines for filing the appeals.

Despite the mentioned obstructionism, the Government of the Republic of Slovenia keeps asserting that it is interested in expeditious execution of the law but that there are problems in its implementation such as lack of personnel, lack of funds, difficult cases, and the like, excuses which in most cases are without merit.

Here we must point out Article 58 of the Law on Denationalization (Restitution) which provides that “the decision on a restitution claim on the first level must be rendered and delivered to the claimant not later than within 1 (one) year from the filing date of a properly submitted claim”. The last date for submitting the claims was December 7, 1993.

Besides the above cited article, which has to this date not been repealed, the Government of the Republic of Slovenia keeps adopting new resolutions as to when should the restitution proceedings be completed. At first in 1999, the government resolved that the processes would be completed by the year 2000, then by the year 2002 and now it is finding that the completion will not be possible before the end of 2004! On June 10, 1999, the Parliament adopted a resolution that all claims on the first level must be resolved by the end of the year 2000. This resolution is in accordance with the EU demand that the restitution in Slovenia should be completed in full prior of the admission of Slovenia to the European Union. (See: Report of the 2nd Session of the European Union Accession Committee for the Republic of Slovenia and the European Union, Brussels, March 23, 2000).

The futility of such casually adopted resolutions is evident in the fact that the resolution of a claim at first level does not mean a de facto return of the property. If the decision is in favor of the claimant, the current holder of the property will usually appeal, if it is not favorable for the claimant, the claimant will appeal. Thus a round of appeals, first to the relevant ministries and then to the courts begins where there are vast prospects of litigation of several years duration. The appellate authorities as a rule do not render a final decision in the matter but remand the case to the first level where the vicious cycle repeats itself.

Many expropriated persons will in this way be prevented from appealing to the European Court of Human Rights within their lifetime because of a stipulation that all avenues for appeals in Slovenia must be exhausted first.

Completion of the property restitution process -- return of private property to the original owners -- is therefore one of the political criteria for the admission of Slovenia to the European Union.

Expropriated persons in Slovenia cannot understand why, in a year where negotiations for admission of Slovenia to the European Union are being finalized, the Slovene political leadership does not receive frequent admonitions on the failure to implement its own legislation, on the palpable violations of human rights and, finally, on the fact that after ten years of independence the rule of law still does not exist.

Professor Inka Stritar

Acting President
Slovenian Association of Former Owners of Expropriated Property
Adamič-Lundrovo nabrežje 2
1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Phone: ++ 386 1 230 2664