The Slovenian Criminal Code establishes the following offences:

Insult (Art. 158) is punishable by a fine or imprisonment of up to three months. If committed via the media, it is punishable by a fine or imprisonment of up to six months.

Defamation (Art. 160) is defined as “asserting or circulating anything false about another person, capable of causing damage to the honour or reputation of that person”. It is punished with a fine or imprisonment for up to three months. If committed via media, it is punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to six months. If the slander had “grave consequences” for the offended party, the maximum penalty increases to one year in prison.

Slander (Art. 159) is defamation in which the offender knows the statement to be false. It is punished with a fine or imprisonment for up to six months. If committed via media, slander is punished with a fine or imprisonment of up to one year. If the slander had “grave consequences” for the offended party, the maximum penalty increases to two years in prison.

Calumny (Art. 161) is defined as asserting or circulating any matter concerning personal or family affairs of another person that is capable of injuring that person’s honour and reputation. It is punished with a fine or imprisonment for up to three months. If committed via media, it is punished with a fine or imprisonment for up to six months. If, by its nature, the act of calumny may result in “grave consequences”, the maximum penalty increases to one year in prison.

Malicious false accusation of crime (Art. 162) is an act of calumny in which the assertion consists of falsely accusing someone of a crime “with the intention of exposing that person to scorn”. The penalty is a fine or imprisonment for up to three months. If committed via media, it is punished with a fine or imprisonment of up to six months.

No provisions.

Under Art. 163 of the Slovenian Criminal Code, insult, slander, defamation, calumny or malicious false accusation of crime committed against the President of Slovenia is a criminal offence. The penalty in such cases is a fine or imprisonment for up to one year.

Under Art. 163 of the Slovenian Criminal Code, insult, slander, defamation, calumny or malicious false accusation of crime committed against the Republic of Slovenia is a criminal offence. The penalty in such cases is a fine or imprisonment for up to one year. The same punishment applies to anyone who publicly insults the flag, coat of arms or national anthem of the Republic of Slovenia.

Art. 165 of the Criminal Code covers defamation of the Slovenian nation or the Italian, Hungarian or Roma communities. The penalty is a fine or up to one year in prison.

Under Art. 164(1) of the Slovenian Criminal Code, insult, slander, defamation, calumny or malicious false accusation of crime committed against a foreign country, its head of state or its diplomatic ambassador is a criminal offence. The penalty in such cases is a fine or imprisonment for up to one year.

Under Art. 164(1) of the Slovenian Criminal Code, insult, slander, defamation, calumny or malicious false accusation of crime committed against the flag, coat of arms or national anthem of a foreign country.

In addition, this provision applies to such acts committed against an international organisation recognised by the Republic of Slovenia or that organisation’s representative or insignia (Art. 164(2)).

No provisions.

However, Art. 168(4) states that if insult, slander, defamation, calumny or malicious false accusation of crime is committed against a deceased person, that person’s spouse, extra-marital partner, partner from a registered same-sex civil partnership, children or adopted children, parents or adoptive parents, or brothers or sisters can initiate prosecution.

No provisions.

The following data were provided on request to the International Press Institute by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia.

The data shown here relate to the year 2014 and to the Slovenian Criminal Code KZ-1B, in effect from 2012.
• For Art. 158 (insult), there were 32 convictions, resulting in 17 prison sentences, including 2 unconditional prison sentences, 7 criminal fines, and 8 reprimands.
• For Art. 159 (slander), there were 4 convictions, resulting in 2 criminal fines and 2 reprimands.
• For Art. 160 (defamation), there were 14 convictions, resulting in 5 prison sentences, including one unconditional prison sentence, 7 criminal fines, and 2 reprimands.
• For Art. 161 (slander), there were 3 convictions, resulting in 1 suspended prison sentence, 1 criminal fine, and 1 reprimand.

Additionally, for the year 2014, there are data related to Criminal Code KZ-1, which was used between 2008 and 2012.
• For Art. 158 (insult), there was 1 conviction, resulting in 1 suspended prison sentence.
• For Art. 160 (defamation), there was 1 conviction, resulting in a criminal fine.

In 2015, the Slovene Association of Journalists published a study on the use of criminal and civil defamation laws in Slovenia . The study explains:
“The Slovene Association of Journalists requested big Slovene media outlets to provide data on all civil and criminal proceedings against journalists, editors and media companies in the period from 2009 to 2014. Ten media companies submitted the data: the publishers and broadcasters Delo, Dnevnik, Večer, Finance, Slovenske novice, Primorske novice, Reporter, Mladina, Pop TV, Kanal A, TV and Radio Slovenia, siol.net and Radio 1. In total, 127 civil and criminal proceedings were brought against these media outlets over the past few years.”

Of these proceedings, approximately 60 percent were civil proceedings. the study continued:
“As for alleged criminal offences, proceedings against journalists, editors and the media were in most cases initiated on the basis of provisions on the criminal offence of defamation. On top of the list are defamation charges (Art. 160 of the Penal Code) that were imputed on journalists in 44 per cent out of 48 criminal law matters on which the Association has the data. This is followed by cases of alleged insults (Art. 158 of the Penal Code) that were brought against journalists or the media in 15 per cent, i.e. seven cases.”

Regarding the outcome of these cases, the study does not distinguish between civil and criminal proceedings, but notes that out of “82 cases with the known outcome, only 6 ended in conviction or were found for the plaintiff”.

Selected cases

In 2013, a court found blogger and former Slovenian special forces member Mitja Kunstelj guilty of insult and defamation and sentenced him to six months in prison over offensive posts on his blog about the private lives of former journalist Spela Predan and journalist and editor Vinko Vasle. The court reportedly handed Kunstelj the prison sentence after he repeatedly stated that he would not pay compensation and would continue to post similar entries on his blog. In an earlier proceeding, Kunstelj had been ordered to pay Predan and Vasle €10,000 in compensation, remove the disputed content from his blog and publish an apology. The court also had barred Kunstelj from posting the statements about Predan and Vasle again or referring to them.

In July 2015, the Slovenian Parliament amended Art. 168 of the Slovenian Criminal Code on criminal procedure related to the prosecution of defamation . The article was amended to specify that cases of criminal defamation or insult committed against public officials are to be brought by private action rather than by a public prosecutor, as had been the case until now.

Information for Slovenia was originally collected by IPI as part of the “Out of Balance” report, published in January 2015 with support from the European Commission and incorporating research contributed by Center for Media, Data and Society at Central European University in Budapest and by the SHARE Foundation in Belgrade. This entry was later expanded and updated by IPI as part of a study commissioned by the Office of the Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

A fully footnoted version of this entry is available in the OSCE study. This entry was last updated in March 2017.

The information contained in this database is for informational and advocacy purposes only. If you are a journalist facing a defamation claim, you should seek legal advice from a qualified attorney. However, if you are unable to find such an attorney, IPI may be able to assist you in doing so. Please contact us at info(at)ipi.media.