Area: Pravosodje
Competent authority: MP
EZU URL: .nan
Initiative ID: 324
Initiative accepted and completed: '2014-07-21'
Initiative classified in EZU: .nan
Initiative forwarded in response: '2014-04-17'
Initiative published: '2014-04-17'
Initiative submitted: '2014-04-14'
Response from the competent authority: 'Answer from the Ministry of Justice:Under
  the current legislation, 44 district courts in the Republic of Slovenia are competent
  to conduct probate hearings. The data on the work of the courts in this area, which
  are based on judicial statistics, show that the backlog of pending cases is decreasing
  and that there is no significant backlog in the handling of probate cases. In recent
  years, the courts have been dealing with probate cases fairly smoothly. The Court
  Statistics data for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 (individual types of cases
  in courts, excluding misdemeanour cases), the summary report for district courts
  "Probate cases (D)" shows that the trend in the disposal of cases has been virtually
  unchanged over the period. In the years 2008 to 2010, about a quarter of cases were
  not resolved within six months, while in 2011, 30.6% of cases were resolved within
  six months. So - in 2011, 69.4% of all cases were resolved within six months, in
  2012 64.37% were resolved within six months, in 2013 67.23% were resolved within
  six months, and in the last three years, more than 80% of cases were resolved within
  nine months.In 2012, the average expected time to resolve a succession case in all
  district courts was 6.1 months, while in the first nine months of 2013 it was 6.4
  months.The statistics therefore show that the situation in this area is not as worrying
  as the proposal to shorten the waiting time for a succession hearing might suggest.
  It is of course true that during the pendency of the succession proceedings, "items
  are nevertheless issued" and in certain cases it is certainly the case that "in
  the meantime, the future heirs do not know who will inherit certain assets", but
  this should not be a reason for not paying the items. According to Article 132 of
  the Law on Succession (Official Gazette of the SRS, No 15/76, 23/78, 13/94 - ZN,
  40/94 - Decree of the US, 117/00 - Decree of the US, 67/01, 83/01 - CC and 31/13
  - Decree of the US), the deceased''s estate passes by operation of law to his heirs
  at the moment of his death. Under our law, therefore, the moment of the deceased''s
  death, the succession is established, the heirs are called upon to inherit and,
  at the same time, they have already acquired the inheritance. In this way, under
  our law, the succession is not for a moment without a subject. Thus, at the moment
  of the death of the deceased, a community is established between the co-heirs in
  respect of the inheritance, which, as a rule, lasts until the inheritance is divided
  among them. Until then, the co-heirs administer and dispose of the inheritance jointly
  (Art. 145 ZD, par. 1). The administration of an inheritance within a community of
  co-heirs is complicated because every act and measure of administration requires
  the consent of all the co-heirs. In the absence of an executor (if the testator
  has appointed an executor in his will, it is his duty under Article 96 of the Civil
  Code, in particular, to take care of the estate, to administer it, to see to the
  payment of debts and legacies and, in general, to ensure that the will is executed
  in the way the testator wished), the co-heirs may help themselves by entrusting
  the administration of the inheritance to a special administrator, or the court may
  appoint one (second, third and fourth paragraphs of Article 145(2), (3) and (4)
  of the Civil Code). Alternatively, if difficulties arise in passing the estate on
  to the heirs, a provisional administrator of the estate may be appointed. Under
  Article 131 of the LOD, this is normally appointed if the heirs are unknown or their
  whereabouts are unknown, but may also be appointed in any case where this is necessary,
  e.g. if the heirs called to the succession are unwilling or unable to take care
  of the estate. In general, a provisional administrator of the estate is appointed
  if necessary to settle the rights and obligations concerning the estate.The Ministry
  of Justice considers that the above-mentioned arrangement provides all the possibilities
  to ensure that the estate is properly administered even during the pendency of the
  succession proceedings.Finally, we would like to point out that, in view of the
  arrangement whereby the heir becomes the heir of the estate already at the moment
  of the deceased''s death, it is therefore the heir who is obliged to "pay the bills"
  from the moment of the deceased''s death onwards. If someone else has done so in
  the intervening period (i.e. from the death of the deceased until the finality of
  the succession order determining who is the heir), he is of course entitled to claim
  reimbursement of the sums paid from the heir.Notwithstanding the foregoing, the
  Ministry of Justice and the judiciary themselves, each within their respective spheres
  of competence, are constantly striving, through a variety of measures, both legislative
  and organisational, to keep all court proceedings, not only those relating to the
  succession of the deceased person, as short as possible. On 4 June 2013, the Government
  of the Republic of Slovenia and the Supreme Court of Justice of the Republic of
  Slovenia signed the Commitment for the Improvement of the Judiciary (available at:
  http://www.mp.gov.si/fileadmin/mp.gov.si/pageuploads/mp.gov.si/PDF/131002_podpisana_ZAVEZA.pdf).
  This commitment sets out in detail the measures to be taken by the judiciary and
  the executive branch of government to improve the state of the judiciary.The commitment
  also highlights the area of enforcement as one of the priority areas, which is also
  highlighted by the petitioner in his proposal.The Ministry of Justice is therefore
  aware of the problem of lengthy enforcement procedures, and the area of real estate
  enforcement is particularly problematic.In this respect, we would like to clarify
  that the Draft Law on Amendments and Additions to the Law on Enforcement and Security
  (the Draft Law is available on the website: http://imss.dz-rs.si/imis/c5e7f6500bdf2fee50c3.pdf),
  which was adopted by the Government of the Republic of Slovenia on 8 May 2014 and
  forwarded to the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia for consideration
  for adoption in accordance with the ordinary procedure, contains solutions aimed
  at speeding up and faster completion of enforcement proceedings, in particular in
  the field of real estate enforcement, in particular by lowering the starting price
  that may be set by the judge at the first public auction and by abolishing the third
  public auction. The National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia adopted the Law
  at its session of 4 July 2014 (the Law had not yet been published in the Official
  Journal of the Republic of Slovenia at the time of submitting the reply).'
Text file: 324.txt
Title: Shortening the waiting time for a succession hearing
URL: https://www.stopbirokraciji.gov.si/pobuda/?st=324
