Dr. Jadranka Sovdat

Dr. Jadranka Sovdat graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana in 1982. After graduation, she was employed at the Ministry of Justice. In 1983 she passed the public administration examination, and the following year the state legal examination. At the Ministry of Justice she worked in the field of justice; after 1990 particularly in relation to drafting legislation in this field. She is the co-author of legislation and legislative materials in the field of attorneyship, the organisation of the courts and judicial service, the state prosecutor's office, and judicial review of administrative acts that were drafted in the first years after the implementation of the new constitutional order. During her final year at the Ministry of Justice, Dr. Sovdat was head of the Justice Division, which, at that time, carried out tasks in the field of drafting legislation as well as tasks relating to judicial administration and the financing of judicial authorities. In 1994 she was appointed legal advisor to the Constitutional Court, and later she also assumed the office of Deputy Secretary General of the Constitutional Court. Following the completion of her master’s thesis, entitled Sodno varstvo volilne pravice pri državnih volitvah [Judicial Protection of the Right to Vote in State Elections], she completed postgraduate studies in constitutional law and was awarded a Master’s Degree in Law from the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana. She was also awarded a Doctorate from the University of Ljubljana following the completion of her doctor’s thesis, entitled Volilni spor [Electoral Disputes]. In 1999, she was appointed Secretary General of the Constitutional Court and held this office until her election as judge of the Constitutional Court. She has delivered papers on constitutional law at national and international legal conferences. In 1993 Dr. Sovdat spent short study periods at the Conseil d’État of the Republic of France focusing on judicial review of administrative acts and in 1998 at the Conseil constitutionnel of the Republic of France studying electoral disputes. She has published numerous articles on constitutional law and is the co-author of the Commentary on the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia published in 2002 and its supplements published in 2011. She commenced duties as judge of the Constitutional Court on 19 December 2009.