The master's thesis deals with the State of exception in the Slovenian legal system: with the constitutional regulation of the State of emergency on one hand and with the conducts of Slovenian government and other national competent authority in dealing with emergencies in practice on the other. Although the State of exception is in many countries defined as a crisis reaction mechanism and regulated at the constitutional level, governments in times of emergencies oftentimes bypass it by exercising of emergency powers without prior formal declaration of the State of emergency, based on a broad interpretation of the existing legal bases or by incorporating emergency measures into the existing legislation. This approach, which in legal theory is called the business as usual approach, was also used in the Republic of Slovenia during the mass migrant crisis and the COVID-19 outbreak. The master's thesis therefore draws attention to the possibility of abuse of the Slovenian constitutional crisis reaction mechanism – State of emergency – and its consequences. In the final part, it presents the findings regarding the adaption of the existing constitutional provisions of the State of emergency to the current security challenges. A detailed review of the constitutional provisions on the State of emergency and international human rights norms has shown that the Slovenian constitutional mechanism of the State of emergency is designed in accordance with international standards, which are ensuring the survival of the democratic legal order during the emergencies.
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