The amendment to the Civil Procedure Act (ZPP-E) establishes a new legal remedy—an appeal against a decision to set aside a judgment—by which a second-instance court’s decision regarding a lower court’s judgment is subject to judicial review by the Supreme Court. This is a legal innovation introduced in response to practical findings and the circumstances of excessively long civil proceedings in the Republic of Slovenia, aimed at ensuring the right to a trial within a reasonable time. In the years since the introduction of this legal institution, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia has already ruled on various issues related to the subject matter of the appeal review, the deadline for filing an appeal, the grounds for appeal, and the scope of the appellate review. From the perspective of pursuing the objectives of the ZPP-E amendment (and also the previous ZPP-D amendment), the issue of distinguishing between cassation and reformatory powers is particularly important; due to the extension of constitutional safeguards into civil proceedings, this issue also has a constitutional dimension. All of these issues, as addressed in judicial practice, therefore make a significant contribution to assessing whether the ZPP-E amendment has (already) achieved its fundamental objective of more efficient and faster civil proceedings in practice, which is pursued within the framework of the right to judicial protection.
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