Slovenia has a strong legal framework to address corruption, but enforcement is inconsistent. The government is not effective in enforcing anti-corruption laws, and public officials engage in corruption with impunity (HRR 2016). The Commission for the Prevention of Corruption (CPC) has a poor public image and is seen as ineffective (NiT 2018). The OECD has warned that the CPC suffers from political influence (OECD 2016).
Slovenia’s Criminal Code criminalizes attempted corruption, extortion, blackmail, active and passive bribery (including of foreign officials), facilitation payments and money laundering. There is no threshold for gifts to be considered bribes (CMS 2016). If the offender is an individual, penalties for giving or receiving unjustified gifts and bribery are punishable by up to six years in prison and forfeiture of the bribe value (CMS 2016). Companies may be fined up to 200 times the value of the damage caused or benefit obtained, confiscation, winding up of the company, debarment from participating in public procurement for up to ten years and a prohibition on trading in financial instruments for up to eight years (CMS 2016). The Integrity and Prevention of Corruption Act prohibits the receipt of gifts, bribes and facilitation payments by public officials as well as the supply of gifts, bribes or facilitation payments to government and local bodies and holders of public authorization (CMS 2016). The Public Procurement Act (in Slovenian) requires institutions to follow procurement rules for any contract for goods and services with a value of at least EUR 20,000 and a minimum of EUR 40,000 for works (EUROPAM 2017).
Slovenia has ratified a number of international conventions, such as the Council of Europe Civil Law Convention on Corruption, Criminal Law Convention on Corruption and the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, which is poorly enforced (EC 2015). It has furthermore ratified the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). Slovenia participates in several anti-corruption initiatives, such as the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) of the Council of Europe, the European Partners Against Corruption (EPAC) and the European contact-point network against corruption (EACN).