Text file: 303.txt
author: splavar
downvotes: 2
end consideration date: 2010-01-10
id: '303'
number comments: 6
number views: 5721
proposal type: Competent authority response
response: 'Response from the Ministry of Public Administration

  It is proposed to establish a specific system of accountability in the civil service
  or to establish penalties for civil servants as well as for Ministers and individual
  departments for failure to respond to users'' questions and suggestions, failure
  to implement or partial implementation of laws due to negligence, and irresponsible
  behaviour by civil servants. 1. Article 13 of the Law on Civil Servants (Official
  Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, No 56/02, 110/02, 2/04, 23/05, 6277/2005, 113/05,
  21/06, 131/06, 33/07, 65/08, 69/08 and 69/08) already enshrines the principle of
  accountability for results as one of the fundamental principles of the civil service
  system, according to which a civil servant is responsible for the quality, speed
  and efficiency of the performance of the public tasks entrusted to him. Article
  29 also enshrines the career principle, which specifically emphasises that an official''s
  career depends on the results of his or her work. These two principles are also
  the basis for a number of other provisions of the above-mentioned law which allow
  for the sanctioning of poor performance by a civil servant, namely: - a civil servant
  may be promoted solely on the basis of a performance appraisal (Art. 111) - in the
  event of a finding of incompetence in the performance of his duties, the official''s
  post shall be terminated (Art. It should also be noted that under Article 111 83
  of the Staff Regulations, the official may be transferred to another clerical or
  professional-technical post (Article 149) or, in the event of failure to achieve
  the expected performance, the contract of employment may be terminated on a regular
  basis (Article 159). 2. Article 111 of the Labour Relations Act (Official Gazette
  of the Republic of Slovenia, 42/02, 79/06, 46/07, 103/07, 45/08 and 83/09), an employer
  may terminate an employee''s employment contract on an extraordinary basis for a
  serious breach of a contractual or other obligation under the employment relationship,
  committed intentionally or with gross negligence. The Civil Servants Act also establishes
  in a separate chapter the liability of civil servants for damages (Chapter XVIII,
  Article 135), according to which a civil servant is liable for damages for loss
  or injury caused intentionally or through gross negligence unlawfully to the employer
  in the course of or in connection with his/her work. For damage unlawfully caused
  by a public servant to a third party in the course of or in connection with his
  employment, the employer shall be liable to the third party for damages and, if
  the employer has paid the damages, the employer shall be entitled to recourse for
  the full amount of the damages paid. However, the third party may also claim compensation
  as an injured party from the person who unlawfully caused the damage, if the damage
  was caused intentionally. Pending the conclusion of a collective agreement at the
  level of the activity, the provisions of the Civil Servants Act on disciplinary
  liability (Chapter XVII) continue to apply, where, inter alia, misconduct towards
  clients, unlawful and unintended use of public funds, breach of the principle of
  impartiality and political neutrality, etc., are listed as minor or serious disciplinary
  offences. The disciplinary measures for minor disciplinary offences are a reprimand
  and a fine, while for serious disciplinary offences they are a fine, removal from
  office or removal from office, removal from title and appointment to a grade lower.  5.
  Chapter XXVI of the Law on Civil Servants contains penal provisions, where Article
  183 provides for fines for various offences for the supervisor or authorised persons,
  and, for example, the offence punishable by a fine under this Article is the failure
  to issue the correct individual acts in due time, as provided for in the employment
  relationship. Similar penal provisions are usually included in other laws and concern
  the superior, who then takes consequent action against the civil servant. 6. The
  proposal you have sent us also provides for the possibility of penalising the civil
  servant, the individual department and the Minister. In this connection, it is important
  to recall a fundamental principle of criminal law, namely that there is no crime
  and no punishment without law. No person shall be liable to a penalty or other penal
  sanction for an act which was not made a criminal offence by law before it was committed
  and for which no penalty or other penal sanction was prescribed by law. In order
  to be able to impose penalties for specific acts of civil servants, departments
  or ministers, they would have to be defined as criminal offences in a specific part
  of the Criminal Code (CC-1, Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, 55/08,
  66/08 and 39/09), which already defines various forms of abuse of official position
  or official rights as criminal offences.   7. In line with the above, the existing
  legislation therefore already provides for various types of liability of public
  officials and also allows for appropriate action by the superiors in the event of
  inappropriate, negligent or unlawful work by public officials.  '
response date: 2010-01-21
response due date: null
sent date: 2009-12-12
title: Public officials' liability
upvotes: 9
url: https://predlagam.vladi.si/predlog/303
