Vesna Pavlič Pivk was appointed to the District Court in Ljubljana by the Judicial Council, namely to the Criminal Department. With this, she was also moved to the 53rd pay grade.
We have previously already written about the fact that Vesna Pavlič Pivk is part of the first league of the privileged Slovenian judges. The former president of the District Court in Ljubljana got caught up in an affair last autumn, due to the alleged misuse of the company car for private purposes, namely, for driving to the gym with it. The case was sent to the Higher Court. However, even though Pavlič was now involved in criminal proceedings, she continued to judge in the courtrooms of the Ljubljana District Court.
The judge first became widely known to the public because of her birthday party, at which she paraded around with a Yugoslav flag and wore a “Titovka” – the famous pioneer cap on her head. In 2017 already, we wrote about the fact that the procedures for verifying the alleged violations of judge Pavlič Pivk had started, in connection with the unusual way of her taking the annual leave. In 2014, the judge was absent for ten working days but did not report her absence. She thus caused damages to the court’s budget, as, despite her absence, her commute expenses were reimbursed, and she received her lunch allowance. However, it seems that the first-class judges do not need to bear any consequences for their actions – they even get rewarded in spite of their wrongdoings.
Only one member of the Judicial Council opposed her appointment
Vesna Pavlič Pivk was appointed to the District Court in Ljubljana by the Judicial Council, namely to the Criminal Department, along with the prosecutors Tina Lesar and Ana Bučar Brglez. Only one member of the Judicial Council voted against Pavlič Pivk’s appointment. So much for the independent staffing of the Judicial Council. The public mostly knows about judge Lesar because of the case of the girl from Jesenice, as she changed her indictment against the girl’s mother and her partner during the trial. The prosecution proposed imprisonment for 21 years for each of the two, as the accused, according to the prosecutor, committed the crimes in complicity by active action and abandonment of care.
And during the time of the former Minister of Justice Aleš Zalar, judge Bučar Brglez held the position of head of the Office for International Cooperation and International Legal Assistance.
Sara Bertoncelj
