The entire top brass of the Court of Audit, with the first signatory being the President, Jana Ahčin, sent a letter of protest to Prime Minister Robert Golob (the Freedom Movement party) and the Speaker of the National Assembly Urška Klakočar Zupančič (the Freedom Movement party), protesting the fact that the Parliament cut the institution’s funding by 3.9 million euros, which also hit their salaries – in defiance of the agreements and with an amendment from the parties in the government.
The government parties are furious with the auditors for daring to point out that Finance Minister Klemen Boštjančič and the government, by allocating millions from the state reserves for the “dream courthouse”, have negligently violated the Public Finance Act, which does not allow the money to be spent on state real estate purchases. Real estate purchases can be planned and carried out according to the normal procedure. It is not reasonable to buy them overnight, without thinking the purchases through. Similarly, the Court of Audit criticised the Minister for Culture, Asta Vrečko, for donating more than 8,000 euros to Svetlana Makarovič without any basis in law.
There have been many other criticisms from the auditors for the illegal and careless handling of public money by this government, which do not deviate from similar criticisms made when it came to previous governments.
Penalties of almost 4 million euros
The agreed sum for the normal work of the Court of Audit, proposed by the Ministry of Finance and the government, was reduced by 3.9 million euros in Parliament by an amendment from the parties of the government coalition, without any coordination with the Court of Audit, the Court warned.
They were deprived of half of the sum spent on the purchase of a useless building for judges, which was planned to control such unreasonable behaviour by the authorities.
The Court of Audit also pointed out that the salary reform has devalued the posts in the Court of Audit.
The full protest statement reads as follows:
“Dear Dr Robert Golob, Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia, dear Mrs Urška Klakočar Zupančič, MSc, Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia,
A letter of protest by the Court of Audit of the Republic of Slovenia against interference in its independence
The leadership of the Court of Audit of the Republic of Slovenia and the Court of Audit of the Republic of Slovenia (hereinafter referred to as the Court of Audit) as an institution express their strong opposition to the interference of the executive and legislative branches of power in its independence by
1) the undervaluing of the roles at the Court of Audit and the inconsistent relationship between them and
2) the failure to provide material conditions for work, which undermines the reputation of the Court of Audit as an independent state body and weakens the institution’s position.
The Court of Audit, as a constitutional body, by its very nature and the role it plays in the system of state regulation, must carry out its work with a high degree of professionalism, impartiality, objectivity and accountability. The lack of financial autonomy prevents the Court of Audit from exercising its powers effectively and smoothly, regardless of the personnel composition of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia at any given time, and upsets the balance between the branches of power within the system of checks and balances, thereby undermining the independent position of the Court of Audit, which has a strong supervisory function in the constitutional order, including over the functioning of the executive branch of power.
The Court of Audit calls on the Government of the Republic of Slovenia and the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia to take into account the constitutional legal position and independence of the Court of Audit when taking decisions.
- General
The Court of Audit is a constitutional state body, the supreme authority for the control of the national accounts, the national budget and all public spending, which oversees all other branches of government and is independent and bound by the Constitution and the law in its work. Acts issued by the Court of Audit in the exercise of its audit powers may not be subject to review before the courts or before other public authorities.
The decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, No U-I-474/18 of the 10th of December 2020, which refers to financial autonomy, which is inextricably linked to the budgetary resources for the operation of the body, is of the utmost importance for the interpretation of the elements of the Court of Audit’s independence and autonomy.
- Inadequate valuation of roles at the Court of Audit in the new salary system
The powers, organisation and status of the Court of Audit are more precisely defined by the Law on the Court of Audit. It is clear from the relevant provisions of both the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia and the Law on the Court of Audit that the Court of Audit is established in a manner comparable to other constitutional bodies, and when it was adopted, the said Law expressly established the salary of the President (and, for the Deputy President, the salary of a judge) of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia as the starting point for the level of the salary of the President of the Court of Audit, and, furthermore, of other officials, as a constitutionally comparable (head of) a state body.
The adoption of the Law on the Common Foundations of the Public Sector Remuneration System has resulted in the classification of the roles at the Court of Audit in such a way that the executive branch of government, which conducted and concluded the harmonisation process without taking into account the arguments of the Court of Audit, and the legislative branch of government, by adopting the said law, have devalued the Court of Audit as one of the key institutions in this country. Even during the legislative process, when such a consequence could have been avoided, the Court of Audit objected to the planned regulation in a letter dated the 10th of October 2024, which was forwarded to both the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia and the Government of the Republic of Slovenia, but was not taken into account.
This interference with the recognised status or social and constitutional position of the Court of Audit has made the Court of Audit, due to the lower valuation of its functions, incomparable to institutions with which it is on an equal footing under the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia. In this way, it will also become less attractive to highly qualified professionals, especially auditors, who are the pillar and guarantor of the institution’s ability to continue to operate legally, efficiently and with a high level of professionalism.
The significance of the above-mentioned decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia has been completely removed by taking away the possibility for the Court of Audit to evaluate its own roles, posts and other operating costs within the given framework. The evaluation of the roles at the Court of Audit cannot be excluded from the constitutional framework of state bodies, nor can the importance of mutual respect between institutions for the strengthening of the rule of law and the reputation of the Republic of Slovenia in the eyes of its citizens be neglected.
III. Reduction of the financial plan of the Court of Audit regarding its activities
The draft Amendments to the Budget of the Republic of Slovenia for 2025 have been coordinated and agreed upon with the Court of Audit and adopted by the Government of the Republic of Slovenia. As always, the Court of Audit has been careful and economical in planning the necessary resources, which the Ministry of Finance apparently also realised, which is clear from the fact that it accepted the Court of Audit’s proposals and included them in the Government’s material.
However, in the process of adopting the 2025 budget, this harmonised proposal, which also included the comprehensive and systematic provision of the material conditions for the Court of Audit’s work, was amended, without further coordination with the Court of Audit, by an amendment from the coalition, which reduced the appropriations in the sub-programme “020301 Activities of the Court of Audit” by 3,860,000.00 euros, thus making the legislator’s interference with the independence of the Court of Audit even more severe and even more fatal and in a more powerful way than ever before.
This cut has deprived the Court of Audit of the very resources it needs for its very basic upkeep, without any systemic and strategically oriented intervention to ensure normal working conditions.
The Court of Audit welcomes the provision of additional funds for policies of key importance to the State (specifically: sub-programme “170301 Investment at secondary and tertiary level preparatory work to solve the spatial problem of the Ljubljana Institute of Oncology”), but this does not relieve the executive branch of its duty not to interfere with the independence of bodies which are constitutionally such. In other words, in the words of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia in the above-mentioned decision, “the Government has a wide range of possibilities to reallocate the remaining budgetary resources, which it can use to ensure budgetary balance and fiscal stability, without at the same time unconstitutionally interfering with the financial independence of the above-mentioned constitutional bodies”.
Respectfully,
Jana Ahčin, President of the Court of Audit
Maja Bilbija, MSc, First Deputy President of the Court of Audit
Mojca Planinšek, MSc, Second Deputy President of the Court of Audit
Helena Jenko, Supreme State Auditor
Simona Majer, MSc, Supreme State Auditor
Nataša Musar Mišeljić, Supreme State Auditor
Aleksej Šinigoj, MSc, Supreme State Auditor
Nataša Karlić Kovačič, MSc, Supreme State Auditor
Jerneja Vrabič, Supreme State Auditor
Tadeja Pušnar, Secretary of the Court of Audit”
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