The Constitutional Court has dismissed a petition by Slovenian judges to examine whether the fiscal austerity act is in line with the Constitution in parts referring to a freeze in judges' pay.
The judges filed the petition in March arguing that their pay had not yet been adjusted to their wage brackets as had been in the case of officials in the other two branches of power.
The Chair of the Judges' Association Janja Roblek argued then that judges were willing to contribute their share, but not to the same extent as the office holders in the other two branches of power, as ministers and MPs were already paid in line with the brackets they are placed in under the law.
But in the explanation of the Constitutional Court's decision, Chief Justice Ernest Petrič said that the petitioners failed to exhaust all other legal means at their disposal.
He argues that the provision on the pay freeze does not have a direct effect and that in such cases a petition can only be filed after legal means had been exhausted against an individual act issued based on the contentious legal provision.
The fiscal austerity act, passed by parliament on 23 December 2011, imposed a freeze on pensions, public sector pay and social transfers with the exception of unemployment benefits for the first half of 2012.
Source: The Slovenian Times
