STA, 7 December 2018 - The prosecution has withdrawn charges of negligence against a former Ljubljana primary school headteacher who banned two male final year students from school grounds after they allegedly sexually harassed a pair of their female classmates.
In a press release, the Ljubljana Supreme Prosecution Office said on Friday that the district prosecution took the decision after examining the defendant's written and oral arguments and documents in the file.
"In his plea, Dušan Merc shed light on the matter by presenting relevant circumstances material for the assessment of his conduct," the release said.
The prosecution concluded that Merc cannot be accused that he caused grave violation of human rights of the two students because their constitutional right to education was not violated.
According to media reports, Merc, the former headteacher of the Prule primary, was put on trial on charges of negligence at work for allegedly violating the two boys' right to education.
The case goes back five and a half years when two year 9 Prule students harassed their classmates in a swimming pool during a sports day.
After pushing them under water several times to the point of exhaustion, they sexually attacked the girls and later even made fun of them on school premises.
Five days later, after the marking period was over, Merc banned the boys from school grounds in order to protect the victims, but a schools inspector found him in the wrong and the case was later taken up by the prosecution.
