On 24 October 2024, a round table was held in Ljubljana to present the first results of the European Union – Council of Europe joint project “Ensuring the best interests of the child in civil court proceedings”.

The event brought together some 80 representatives from the Ministries of Justice, Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Health and Legal Services, District Courts, the National Assembly, court experts, Chamber of Clinical Psychologists, social work centres, the Children's House, Office of the Ombudsperson, Slovenian Bar Association, lawyers, UNICEF and NGOs.

Opening the round table, Andreja Katič, Minister of Justice of Slovenia, encouraged participants to share “new insights, ideas and, above all, solutions that we will be able to translate into everyday judicial practice in order to improve the best interests of the child in civil proceedings.”

In her opening remarks, Regina Jensdottir, Council of Europe Coordinator for the Rights of the Child and Head of the Children’s Rights Division emphasised the collective responsibility of all the stakeholders present and urged them to make “a real, tangible difference in the lives of children who rely on us to safeguard their rights and protect their best interests during some of the most difficult times of their lives.”

Participants engaged in discussions centred around the findings and recommendations of project’s key deliverables:

• the assessment of the current legal, policy and institutional framework with a focus on priority issues identified with the Ministry of Justice and the Inter-ministerial Working group (available in Slovenian and in English),
• the training gap analysis for professionals working with and for children involved in civil court proceedings (available in Slovenian and in English),

Topics covered included child-sensitive communication, child participation throughout the proceedings, the role of guardians and children’s advocates, custody arrangements, effective cooperation between legal and social services, preventive and protective measures, and family support programmes. Kjartan Björnsson, Deputy Director and Head of Unit, Governance and Public Administration at European Commission underscored the importance of following up on the reports and insights provided by the experts to collaboratively build a strong Strategy and Action Plan for implementing reforms in the field of civil proceedings in Slovenia.

The round table also served to discuss the ECtHR case (Q and R. v. Republic of Slovenia, 2022) which initiated the project and national follow-up actions taken in response to the Court’s decision.

 Agenda (Slovenian and English)

  Assessment of the current legal, policy and institutional framework with a focus on priority issues identified with the Ministry of Justice and the Inter-ministerial Working group (available in Slovenian and in English),

  Training gap analysis for professionals working with and for child involved civil court proceedings (available in Slovenian and in English)

Legal analysis: Presentation of the methodology, the results and the recommendations (Slovenian)

Training gap analysis: Presentation of the methodology, the results and the recommendations - PIC (Slovenian)

 Presentation on the Supervision by the Committee of Ministers of the implementation of the judgment Q and R v. Slovenia - Nedim Kulenovic (English)

 Presentation on Execution of ECtHR judgements - Robert Golobinek (English)