The Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic of Slovenia (Ombudsman) determined violations of the principles of good administration in the actions of the Municipality of Ljubljana (MOL), specifically by the City Administration of MOL. Namely, it took over nine months (and only following the intervention by the Ombudsman) to issue a comprehensive written answer to the complainant's complaint.

* * *

The Ombudsman considered a complaint from an individual on the alleged unresponsiveness of the City Administration of MOL regarding her application dated 09/01/2023, in which she requested the revocation of a permit for driving through a pedestrian zone that was granted to another co-owner of the residential building she resides in. The complainant allegedly contacted the City Administration of MOL in November 2022 regarding the issues of the neighbour parking in the inner courtyard and, before submitting the above-mentioned application as well as after it, contacted both a specific MOL employee and the Head of the Traffic Department at the Office for Economic Activities and Transport of the City Administration of MOL multiple times verbally and in writing. She also allegedly made numerous requests for information on the procedure but never received any comprehensive answers.

The Ombudsman made an inquest with the City Administration of MOL regarding the allegations made by the complainant and received a response letter in the form of the City Administration's answer to the complainant on 18/10/2023. We deemed the explanations provided by the City Administration of MOL to be justified, but it must nevertheless be considered that the lengthy response time to the complainant's application was unacceptable. Thus, we deemed the complaint to be justified. We determined a violation of the principles of good administration. The Ombudsman commends that the department apologized for the delayed reply and hopes such response latencies will not occur in the future. 14.0-3/2023