A/HRC/40/64/Add.1 I. Introduction 1. The Special Rapporteur on minority issues conducted an official visit to Slovenia from 5 to 13 April 2018, pursuant to the standing invitation of the Government. He visited a wide spectrum of stakeholders at the governmental level, non-governmental organizations, institutions working on issues relating to minorities and minority communities themselves, and their representatives within and outside the capital. The Special Rapporteur met with high-level representatives of a number of ministries and other governmental entities, including the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning, the Ministry of Public Administration, the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities and the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports. He also met with representatives of the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman, the Advocate of the Principle of Equality, the Office for National Minorities, the Ministry of Culture and the Interior, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court. 2. The Special Rapporteur held consultations with members of civil society organizations working on issues affecting minorities and of minority communities themselves and their representatives, including the Roma Union of Slovenia and the Roma Community Council of the Republic of Slovenia, and the Roma communities in Pušča, Murska Sobota and the Lokve settlement in Črnomelj, representatives of the Hungarian minority in Lendava, and that of the Italian minority in Koper. Meetings were also held with representatives of other communities, including the Albanian, Bosniac, Croat, Kosovar, Macedonian, Montenegrin and Serb minorities, and of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community who use sign language as members of a linguistic minority. 3. The Special Rapporteur thanks the Government of Slovenia for the cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and for the Government’s readiness to engage in an open dialogue allowing the mandate holder to better understand and assess the human rights situation of minorities. He also expresses his gratitude to the officials of the United Nations Office at Vienna in supporting and assisting his mission, and to the numerous national and international non-governmental organizations that provided information and met with him. II. Mission objectives 4. The Special Rapporteur conducted his mission to Slovenia in order to assess the situation of human rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and the impact of existing legislation, policies and practices in this regard. 5. During his mission, the Special Rapporteur focused on access to quality education, use of minority languages, issues relating to freedom of religion, inclusion and participation in the political process, and current efforts to fight hate speech. He sought to gain an insight into the normative framework regulating the status of minorities, including the impact of more recent changes to legislation and other mechanisms. 6. As often explained in his meetings and exchanges during the mission, the Special Rapporteur uses the term “minorities” to refer to a linguistic, religious or ethnic group that accounts for less than half the population of a country. To be a member of a minority has no negative connotation, does not depend on official recognition, and does not involve any issue of domination, subservience or socioeconomic status. The Special Rapporteur noted the constitutional distinction between autochthonous Italian and Hungarian national communities and other minorities in Slovenia, and the special rights of the Roma community. III. Ethnic, linguistic and religious minority communities 7. Slovenia has a population of just over 2 million. A republic of the former Yugoslavia, in 1991 it became an independent parliamentary democracy and in 2004 a member of the European Union. 3