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The Foreign Ministry of Slovenia

Miro Cerar

Minister of Foreign Affairs

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Date of birth: 25 August 1963

Education: LLD, Professor of Law

Career:

Dr Miro Cerar was elected Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia by the National Assembly on 25 August 2014. Until 2014, he had not been a member of any political party and had not been actively engaged in politics. In 2013, the majority parliamentary coalition offered to support him as the new Prime Minister; he refused, as he believed that the parliamentary parties of that time did not provide the necessary conditions to overcome the social crisis. One year later, he and a group of his supporters set up a new political party to take part in early parliamentary elections. Cerar’s party (SMC) was established on 2 June 2014, and went on to win a historic victory by securing the leading total of 36 out of 90 seats in parliament, which is the largest number of seats ever won by any political party to date. On 7 March 2015, during its first regular congress, the party was renamed the Modern Centre Party (SMC).

Before entering national politics, Dr Miro Cerar was a full professor of theory and philosophy of law, comparative law and the ethics of the legal profession at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana. Between 1990 and 1991, he was also the youngest legal expert to have participated in the drafting of the Slovenian Constitution and other constitutional independence acts. Later, he served for more than 20 years as adviser to the Slovenian National Assembly on constitutional law and other legal matters. He also provided advice to ministries, law firms, institutions, chambers and others. As a visiting lecturer and a Fulbright scholar, he lectured in comparative constitutional law at the Golden Gate University Law School in San Francisco and underwent professional training at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. From December 2010 to June 2012, he was president of the Judicial Council of the Republic of Slovenia, after serving as vice president for a year and a half. Between 2000 and 2014, he was selected for thirteen times to a group of the ten most influential Slovenian legal experts, and between 2011 and 2014, he was selected for four times as the most eminent Slovenian legal expert.

Dr Cerar has authored and co-authored a number of Slovenian and foreign books and articles. With his popular columns and numerous public appearances, he has established himself as a public opinion leader in Slovenia. Especially during the recent, crisis-ridden years, he has become an authoritative critical public thinker, cautioning about the importance of the neglected social values, the culture of tolerance and dialogue and the need to raise the political and legal culture. In his books for the general audience Pravnikov mozaik (Lawyer’s Mosaic, 2007), Pamet v krizi (Common Sense in Danger, 2010) and Slovenci na popravnem izpitu (Slovenes Retaking Exams, 2013), he deliberates on ethics, politics, law, education, spirituality and other topical social and humanist issues. In 2010, he received a special award for his original book Kako sem otrokom razložil demokracijo (How I Explained Democracy to Children).

At the proposal of Dr Cerar, his ministerial list was confirmed by the National Assembly on 18 September 2014, and the 12th Slovenian Government took up its work on the same day. He served as Prime Minister until the election of the 13th Government of the Republic of Slovenia on 13 September 2018. On 14 September 2018, he took up the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs under the current government.