crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
Except in the case of the Act on Criminal Offences Against the People and the State, the provisions
of the laws were not in accordance with the currently valid constitutional and general legal principles
recognised by civilised nations, inasmuch as due to their vagueness they provided a basis for arbitrary
judgement. The most common deficiency is that criminal offences were defined in very general terms
and allowed adjudication by analogy. The Constitutional Court decided which provisions could not
be used and the manner in which unjust sentences issued on the basis of these regulations could be
overturned. 55
In 1996, the National Assembly adopted the Redressing of Injustices Act, 56 which partially regulates
the right to compensation for damages and rights to pension and disability insurance for former political
prisoners and relations of victims of illegal post-war deprivation of life, the procedure for exercising
these rights and the bodies which decide on these rights. This law also prescribes the special conditions
for the procedure and for a reversal of final criminal verdicts. Article 3 of the Act states the provisions of
various penal regulations, which were valid after the end of the war, on the basis of which the status of
former political prisoners can be established. They include various provisions of the Act on Suppression
of Prohibited Trade and Economic Sabotage of 1946 and the Founding Act of Agricultural Collectives
of 1949. A total of 20,347 applications were submitted between 1997 and 2008, of which 19,204 cases
have been resolved.
55
Decree on Military Tribunals (Decisions and Resolutions of the Constitutional Court (Odlus) III, no. 33); Prosecution of Crimes and
Offences against the Slovenian National Honour Act (Odlus VII/2, no. 176); Act on Criminal Offences against the People and the State
(Odlus VII/2, no. 195); Act on Suppression of Prohibited Trade and Economic Sabotage (Odlus V/1, no. 31).
56
Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, no. 59/96.
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