The legal consequences of conviction represent a special institute of criminal law with a preventive function, which can significantly affect the position of convicted persons after serving their sentence in various areas of life. They pertain both to the termination or loss of individual rights as well as the prohibition of acquiring certain rights, and they may also affect legal entities.
They serve as a supplementary means to ensure the overall effectiveness of criminal sanctions and to promote greater responsibility among individuals who occupy important positions in society.[1]
This master’s thesis presents the regulation of the legal consequences of conviction in the Slovenian legislation, as well as the relationship between criminal law and other branches of law, and between the legal consequences of conviction and security measures. It focuses on some of the most common legal consequences of conviction that affect offenders and outlines the issue of the diverse legal nature of these consequences, as well as the automatism of their occurrence.
An important impact on the legal consequences of a conviction is attributed to the institute of rehabilitation, through which the remaining legal consequences of the conviction are removed, and it is deemed as if the convicted person had never been convicted. The duration of legal consequences of conviction, particularly those involving prohibitions on acquiring certain rights, may also be affected by pardon, amnesty, and a court decision upon the convicted person’s request, therefore; the impact of these institutes is also presented.
The most prominent case in Slovenia concerning the legal consequences of conviction was the termination of the parliamentary mandate of Janez Janša, which sparked various opinions and debates among legal experts and was ultimately decided by the Constitutional Court. This is also addressed in this master’s thesis, as this case aptly illustrates the issues that may arise from inadequately drafted legal provisions governing the legal consequences of conviction and their divergent interpretations.
[1] L. Selinšek, Kazensko pravo, splošni del in osnove posebnega dela (2007), p. 356.
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