STA, 11 March 2019 - Several cases of drunk driving by members of the Slovenian police force as well as one by a state prosecutor have been making headlines in recent weeks. While such cases are set to be on the decline, they have now grabbed public attention for including very senior members.
The first prominent case reverberated in early February, as Maribor Criminal Police head Robert Munda was caught driving off duty with 0.51 of milligrams of alcohol per litre of breath, more than double the 0.24 mg/L legal limit.
This was preceded by a case at the end of January when a member of the criminal police crashed into a traffic light in Ljubljana, also during his free time but allegedly with an alcohol level of 0.97 mg/L.
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Even more excessive, allegedly involving four-times the legal limit, was the case of a drunk driving district state prosecutor, unofficially Anica Šoštarič from Murska Sobota, who was caught at the end of February.
Meanwhile, the most recent case of a senior representative of the hand of justice driving under the influence was reported today and unofficially includes the head of the Operation and Communication Centre at the Kranj Police Administration Jože Pasar.
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According to POP TV, Pasar was involved in an accident on 16 February while speeding and drunk driving with an alcohol level of 0.62 mg/L. He has been issued a pre-termination warning notice.
Disciplinary proceedings are said to have also been introduced in the remaining cases, but no dismissals have been reported.
Meanwhile, Police Commissioner Tatjana Bobnar has told the newspaper Večer that the police force has 8,152 employees and that these are not immune to inappropriate behaviour.
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She stressed that "unlike some other institutions, we have mechanisms in place to discover this and penalise, tackle it ... there are no taboo topics with regard to this in the police".
Bobnar added that such cases have been on the decline and that the recent weeks have created a distorted impression.
"For instance: the police discovered 13,000 people driving under the influence last year. There were nine police officers among them ... The year before, the figure was ten and in 2016 it was 20," she said.
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