By: Sara Bertoncelj / Nova24tv
After a long illness in hospital, professor emeritus Dr Lovro Šturm, Slovenian lawyer and politician, died. “With his knowledge and reputation, Professor Šturm made an important contribution to the democratisation of Slovenia at a crucial time before 1990. With his many contributions and proposals, he participated in the transformation of the constitutional system and the transition to constitutional democracy,” they wrote, among other things, when in 2020 he received the Silver Order of Merit of the Republic of Slovenia for his outstanding contribution to the establishment of the rule of law, constitutionality and constitutional science. Let him rest in peace.
Prof. Dr Lovro Šturm, professor emeritus of the University of Ljubljana, former Constitutional Judge and Minister of Justice, was born in Ljubljana in 1938. After graduating high school, he enrolled at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana, where he graduated in 1961 and received his PhD in 1965. Dr Šturm started his scientific career in 1961 at the Institute of Public Administration and Labour Relations at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana, which he also headed from 1972 to 1985. He was elected full university professor of administrative law and administrative sciences and legal informatics at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana in 1986. Between 1985 and 1990 he was head of the Department of Administrative Law and chairman and member of committees and commissions for study affairs. He was also the president of the council and the scientific council of the Institute of Public Administration, a member of the editorial board of the journal of the Institute of Public Administration and later the journal Javna uprava.
Between June 7th and November 30th, 2000, Šturm was the Minister of Education and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia. Between December 3rd, 2004, and November 21st, 2008, he was the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Slovenia. From November 2011 to January 2016, he was the President of the Assembly for the Republic. He was a professor of administrative law at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana and head of the Institute of Public Administration PF; he was also awarded the title of professor emeritus of the University of Ljubljana (2013). He is also the author of 12 books and has over 200 publications and discussions published in various periodicals.
In 2020, he received the Silver Order of Merit of the Republic of Slovenia for his outstanding contribution to the rule of law, constitutionality and constitutional science: “With his knowledge and reputation, Professor Šturm made an important contribution to the democratisation of Slovenia at a crucial time before 1990. With his many contributions and proposals, he participated in the transformation of the constitutional system and the transition to constitutional democracy. After Slovenia’s independence, he was elected a judge of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia in 1991, where he ended his term in 1998. As President of the Constitutional Court from April 1997 to December 1998, he designed and enforced a new role of the court with the new Constitutional Court Act adopted in 1994. The result of his efforts is also the public publication of all decisions and resolutions, which contributed to the consolidation of legal security, and his pioneering work on the interpretation of many provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia should not be overlooked,” they wrote in the explanation of the state recognition awarded to Dr Lovro Šturm.