Slovenia raises defamation penalty to one to three years in prison

Slovenia has raised the prison sentence for defamation from up to one year to between one and three years, under an amendment to the Criminal Code published in the Uradni list Republike Slovenije on 2 October 2026. The change is set out in the Zakon o spremembi Kazenskega zakonika (KZ-1K), carried in issue 1564/2026 of the official gazette. It was promulgated by decree of the President of the Republic the same day and takes effect on the fifteenth day after publication.

The law is a single-article intervention into the Kazenski zakonik (KZ-1), whose consolidated text was published in Uradni list RS št. 50/12 and has since been amended by the issues 54/15, 6/16 – popr., 38/16, 27/17, 23/20, 91/20, 95/21, 186/21, 105/22 – ZZNŠPP, 16/23 and 107/24 – odl. US. The operative provision touches only the first paragraph of Article 173.a, the article covering defamation, and leaves the rest of the Criminal Code untouched.

What the amendment changes

• In Article 173.a, first paragraph, of the Kazenski zakonik, the wording “up to one year” is replaced by “from one to three years”.
• The offence therefore moves from a maximum penalty of one year’s imprisonment to a statutory range with a floor of one year and a ceiling of three.
• The law contains no transitional provisions: the final article states only that it enters into force on the fifteenth day after publication in the Uradni list Republike Slovenije, which places the start of application on 17 October 2026.
• The amendment carries the file number Št. 713-01/26-4/21 and is dated Ljubljana, 24 September 2026.

Adoption and promulgation

The text was adopted by the Državni zbor Republike Slovenije and signed by its president, Zoran Stevanović. Its parliamentary and administrative identifiers are:

• EPA 10-X (parliamentary act reference)
• EVA 2026-1211-0010
• EDA 2026-5022924000-0078

Promulgation was carried out by the Ukaz o razglasitvi Zakona o spremembi Kazenskega zakonika (KZ-1K) št. 003-02-1/2026-197, issued by the President of the Republic, Nataša Pirc Musar, on 2 October 2026.

Publication in the Official Gazette

The act appears in the electronic edition of the Uradni list Republike Slovenije, ISSN 1580-3074, year XXXVI, issue 1564/2026, dated 2 October 2026, published by the Služba Vlade Republike Slovenije za zakonodajo. The publication is free of charge and financed by the Republic of Slovenia. The same issue carries other legislative acts, among them the Zakon o spremembah in dopolnitvah Zakona o praznikih in dela prostih dnevih v Republiki Sloveniji (ZPDPD-I), the Zakon o spremembah Zakona o urejanju prostora (ZUreP-3E), the Zakon o spremembi Zakona o odpravljanju posledic dela z azbestom (ZOPDA-C) and the Zakon o specializiranih organih za obravnavo korupcijskih kaznivih dejanj in organiziranega kriminala (ZSOKOK).

The change matters most to those who publish: defamation proceedings are typically brought over statements made in the press, and a penalty range that starts at one year removes the possibility of a suspended sentence at the lower end of the scale. From 17 October 2026, anyone convicted under the first paragraph of Article 173.a faces a minimum of one year’s imprisonment, with a maximum of three.

Source: Uradni list Republike Slovenije, št. 1564/2026, 2 October 2026, section I (official reference: 2026-01-2224, EPA 10-X).