Acceto and Đorđević are hiding the amount of their salary

By: Peter Jančič (Spletni časopis)

The Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court have informed me that they will not disclose to the public the salaries of the President of the Constitutional Court, Matej Accetto, and the President of the Supreme Court, Miodrag Đorđević.

They are also concealing information about the gross salaries of all other constitutional and supreme judges. The Constitutional Court explained that they cannot disclose information about gross salaries to the public because people could calculate the length of service of individual constitutional judges, which, in their opinion, is personal data. The Supreme Court informed me that they have left the dilemmas to a special service to verify whether the public is allowed to know the gross salaries of Supreme Court judges. This means it will take time.

Similar concealment at RTVS

I sent a request for information about the gross salaries to the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court this time because judges are on strike, and the Constitutional Court has confirmed that judges’ salaries are not adequately regulated. It is, therefore, right to see what these salaries are and compare them with the salaries of other top officials paid under the same law and in similar amounts. Others do not conceal data. However, similar to the Constitutional Court, they will not disclose complete gross salaries because people could deduce the length of service from them, as claimed in the past by the RTVS. However, they reconsidered after a dispute.

Data on gross salaries with seniority bonuses were immediately sent from all other branches of government. President of the Republic Nataša Pirc Musar received a gross salary of €6,493 on Monday, former President Borut Pahor received his last allowance (until December 22^nd, 2023) in the gross amount of €4,005, and Milan Kučan received a €1,548 supplement to his pension, ensuring him 80% of the president’s salary. The total gross amount for Kučan is a secret. However, it is known that when Pahor received his last full 80% of the president’s salary in November, he received a gross amount of €5,256. The husband of the president, Aleš Musar, will receive a net allowance of €974 at the end of January for December, for the costs of performing protocol and other social obligations. Prime Minister Robert Golob, as announced by the government, received a salary of €6,547 this week. Only net data, which I did not request, are presented to the public by the government. Golob received a net amount of €4,067. The most popular among ministers in public opinion polls, Minister of Economic Development Matjaž Han (SD), received a gross amount of €6,261, which amounted to €3,618 net, while the younger Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon (SD) received €6,168 gross and €3,574 net.

Minister of Culture Asta Vrečko (Levica party), who is younger and has fewer seniority bonuses, received a gross salary of €5,832. There is no net data for her. They publish it only if the official agrees that people can find out. Among the interesting facts in the government, former MP and recently State Secretary Darij Krajčič received €4,466 and former Minister Uroš Brežan (Svoboda party) received €4,860 as compensation because they cannot find a job. Krajčič, who once gained fame with a sandwich, lost his position when Marjan Šarec (Svoboda party) temporarily took over the Ministry of Agriculture, and Brežan resigned as a minister. In parliament, the highest salary of €6,279 was received by Urška Klakočar Zupančič (Svoboda party). SDS President Janez Janša received €4,504, and NSi President Matej Tonin received €4,176. The salaries of both opposition leaders are lower because they have fewer position bonuses, and Tonin is also younger than Janša and receives less seniority bonus.

Constitutional Court with a signature, Supreme Court without

The Constitutional Court rejected the provision of data on paid gross salaries,

which is common for other branches of government, as follows:

“The salaries of the President of the Constitutional Court and constitutional judges are regulated by the Law on the System of Wages in the Public Sector (ZSPJS), whereby, in accordance with Annex 3 within the classification of functions in other state bodies in the A4 pay subgroup, the President of the Constitutional Court is classified in the 66^th pay class, and constitutional judges in the 65^th pay class. The amount of pay classes is determined by the pay scale (Annex 1 ZSPJS), namely for the 66^th pay class it amounts to €5,889.96 (gross), and for the 65^th pay class, it is €5,663.42 (gross). In accordance with the second paragraph of Article 23 of the ZSPJS, officials are not entitled to bonuses, except for the seniority bonus. Since the information about seniority is personal information and because, given the same pay class of eight constitutional judges, despite possible anonymisation, it would indirectly be possible to infer how long this period is and for which constitutional judge it is, we do not provide data on their gross salaries, which would also include the seniority bonus.”

From the Supreme Court, they communicated:

“Regarding the nature of the matter, we inform you that you will receive an answer to your question from the official responsible for access to public information. Best regards, Public Relations Service, Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia.”

The response from the Supreme Court was unsigned. From the Constitutional Court, Katarina Ratoša was the signatory.

I have not responded to the Supreme Court; I have to wait there. The process of determining whether they can provide me with the information may take several weeks. I replied to the Constitutional Court with a renewed request for the data and a reminder that the conflict over these dilemmas is not new:

“I kindly ask you to provide me with data on the number of gross salaries paid. For each constitutional judge by name. These data are of public nature; they have been sent to me by all branches of government for decades. It is not possible to calculate the length of service from gross salary data, and your claim about revealing personal information in this case is incorrect and an excuse for withholding information. The same has been argued in the past by the Office of the President of the Republic and at RTVS, but after disputes, including before the IP, they changed their minds and then presented the public with honest and unaltered data on gross paid salaries.”

I recently presented data on the top one hundred gross salaries from RTVS, of course, with a seniority bonus, which increases the salary for older individuals, and they are as follows:

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