Decisions or actions of state institutions may be appealed to the court. Generally, there are two stages of appeal in court. One of them is always provided (regular remedy) and the other only in specifically justified cases (extraordinary remedy).
In general, human rights do not provide for a right to appeal in all cases and all disputes. However, Slovenian Constitution guarantees a right to a legal remedy, which is comprised of a right to appeal administrative bodies’ decisions and courts’ decisions. Higher courts at all stages of appeal have to follow the requirements and guarantees of a fair trial.
Stages of appeal:
Appealing a decision or an action of the state institution to the court of first instance.
Most of the decisions taken by state or public institutions have to be appealed before a higher institution or official before they can be appealed to the court of first instance (Upravno sodišče).
example If you want to appeal the administrative unit’s decision on your building permit application, you must first appeal it before the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning. Only after this can you appeal the decision of the administrative unit to the Court.
Because in Slovenia the Administrative court has a status of a “higher court”, the court of appeal is the highest court in the country – the Supreme Court (Vrhovno sodišče).
There, you can appeal the decisions and judgments of the Administrative court. In the review process, the court of appeal has the same power to examine your case as the lower court (including all disagreements about the facts and law in your case).
In cases where options of appeal have been exhausted, there is sometimes extraordinary legal remedies left to use.
In such cases, where the Supreme Court acts in the role of a court of cassation, it will only examine your complaints about the mistakes of a lower court, which are related to an incorrect interpretation of law or violations of procedural rules. These mistakes must be serious enough to lead to an incorrect decision.
A court of cassation will not examine your complaints about the facts of your case. Since a court of cassation only deals with complaints about potential violations of law in court procedure, the requirements for your access to the court (such as arguments on which you base your cassation claim or court fee) can be stricter than in lower courts. Generally, a court of cassation examines cases in a written procedure, that is, without a public court hearing.