On 7 April 2023, Human Rights Ombudsman Peter Svetina participated at a meeting with the President of the National Council of the Republic of Slovenia, Marko Lotrič. The host also invited to the meeting the President of the Constitutional Court Prof Dr Matej Accetto, the President of the Court of Audit Jana Ahčin, the Information Commissioner Mojca Prelesnik, and the President of the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption Dr Robert Šumi. The Secretary of the National Council of the Republic of Slovenia Monika Kirbiš Rojs, MSc, also attended the meeting.

The participants initially addressed the realisation of the Constitutional Court decision of 10/12/2020, the importance of autonomous and independent state institutions for the functioning of a democratic state and society, and the participation of representatives of state bodies at state celebrations. In the second part of the meeting, in the absence of the President of the Constitutional Court Prof Dr Matej Accetto, the representatives of autonomous and independent state bodies addressed the financial autonomy of these bodies in detail.

At the request of the National Council of the Republic of Slovenia, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia ruled on the financial autonomy of four independent state institutions, the so-called constitutional categories (National Council, Constitutional Court, Human Rights Ombudsman, and Court of Audits), which is also applied to the National Assembly, but not for all bodies independent according to the law (the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption, Information Commissioner, Advocate of the Principle of Equality, Fiscal Council, and National Review Commission remain exempt).

They agreed that the proposal of the Public Finance Act, adopted by the Government of the Republic of Slovenia on 23 March 2023, is heading in the right direction; however, they suggest that the set of beneficiaries include all state bodies which are independent and autonomous by law. An additional problem to the financing of tasks for some bodies is represented by laws adopted by the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia and which, upon their adoption, are defined as laws without financial consequences, but they assign additional tasks to these bodies.

They also discussed the draft of the Act on Common Bases of the Public Sector Salary System (high officials) prepared by the Ministry of Public Administration. They agreed that there are large anomalies in pay relations both in the public sector in general and among high officials, which call for elimination.