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quite a high number maybe you can compare the numbers in your
country.
In the second part I will explain how we deal with petitions and cases
of discrimination within our office. We dealt with these cases from the
beginning but this was not specific area of classification. We introduced
discrimination as particular classification area in 2004 during the second
ombudsman mandate and in this area in last 10 years we received
exactly 687 complaints and this is about 4% of our total number of
complaints. Of this the greatest share 243 are in the area of national
and ethnic minorities. And within this group most cases are related
to situation of the Roman minority in the Republic of Slovenia. Other
complaints related to discrimination in the area of employment, 53
complaints and equal opportunity regarding of sex gender equality 30
complaints. Two years ago in 2013 we introduced two new areas within
this discrimination, namely discrimination based on sexual orientation
and disability. And over this the course of two years we dealt with 5
complaints in the first area and as many as 41 in the second, about
disability. So, this proves this disability was needed to be special area
of our classification. Ombudsman is not the only body dealing with
discrimination in Slovenia, based on the EU Directives and also the
United Nations Convention on the right of the Persons with Disability,
the states are obliged to have the special independent body who deals
with these cases of discrimination. In Slovenia, in 2003 special anti-
discrimination act, it is called equal treatment act in Slovenia introduce
special body, these bodies advocate for the principle of equality and
it carries out its activity primarily in the private sector. But its powers
are limited and he cannot impose sanctions independently. According
to our system in this law advocate after investigating the case he may
refer the case to the relevant national inspection authority which is
authorize to impose sanctions. But this system is not working very
successfully in Slovenia and we criticize in our annual report the first
insufficient independent of this advocate and secondly that the legal
protection against discrimination is relatively weak as a whole because
probability that the violators in fact will be sanctions is relatively low.

Ombudsman in Slovenia is not full-fledged anti-discrimination body
under these EU directives nor the national human rights institution with
status A, according to these principles. We did not apply for status A

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