Slovenian Parliament — Functions and Operations

The aim of the research was to determine the role of the National Assembly in the political system of the Republic of Slovenia and depending on the development of its functions, as new parliaments are much more difficult to perform their duties than older ones. Among these, we have put particular emphasis on the functions of representing interests, resolving conflicts and the legislative function. In addition to objective statistics on the composition and work of the National Assembly, we collected and analysed subjective data on the population of deputies. We were interested in how Slovenian parliamentarians assess their role in the decision-making process in the national parliament. Among other things, we found their understanding of the representation of interests (general, party, local, etc.), the connection with voters and the circumstances that influence the work of the parliamentarians. In particular, we explored their role in parliamentary groups and within the working bodies of the National Assembly, as well as their ability to overcome conflicts and form consensus. We also found out their views on the efficiency of the National Assembly, especially in terms of its organisation and rationality of the legislative procedure defined in the Rules of Procedure of 1993. This effectiveness, as we have seen, is quite affected by the relationship between the government and the National Assembly (MEPs draw attention to the great pressures for legislative regulation and difficulties in programming work) and the relationship between the respective coalition and the opposition. In particular, we tried to determine whether and to what extent MEPs are critical of the established forms of work and what is their willingness to make changes that would establish a greater role for the National Assembly and greater rationality and economy in the legislative process. The totality of the responses in the survey carried out at the end of 1998, which covered 52 Members, shows that the Members of Parliament have accumulated sufficient experience, while the highest willingness to change is shown by the Members who were already elected to the First National Assembly (1996) or previously to the Republican Assembly (1990). The majority of respondents estimated that such surveys were useful and more than 90 % would be willing to reply again.