Non-Territorial Autonomy and Minority Rights: Impact of the Self-Governing National Communities on Minority Protection in Slovenia

Abstract

AbstractSlovenia’s highly developed system of national minority protection has several distinctive features, one of which is the existence of self-governing national communities (SGNCs) for the Italian and Hungarian communities. The model combines personal and territorial elements in an interesting way: self-governing communities can only be established on ‘ethnically mixed territories’, but they are elected solely by persons registered as belonging to the respective community. There is also a second tier: regional SGNCs, with indirectly elected members representing local SGNCs. Most of their competences (on both levels) fall under the category of ‘shared rule’, i.e. they participate in managing institutions (schools, for instance) or in decision-making by providing consent or opinion, while no state powers (for example, in education or culture) are entirely delegated to these bodies.The SGNCs are deeply entrenched in the Slovenian system of minority protection, but are often taken for granted and are rarely assessed with regard to their real impact. There is no systematic monitoring of their performance, and evidence-tracking of their work is scarce and scattered. Against this background, this paper is based on an analysis of the implementation monitoring of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) in Slovenia, and focuses on the issues pertinent to the SGNCs that have appeared in the monitoring so far. The general finding is that, while the institutional position and the formal role of the SGNCs have been acknowledged, their concrete contribution and impact on the implementation of minority rights as indirectly stipulated in the FCNM have been addressed in a rather superficial way. Nevertheless, the monitoring documents offer a valuable insight into the issues pertinent to the functioning of the SGNCs that have attracted attention in almost 25 years of monitoring practice. This paper offers a brief overview of the most striking issues relevant to the functioning of the SGNCs and the implementation of minority rights, as documented in the FCNM monitoring.