President of the National Assembly of Slovenia

According to Article 84 of the Constitution the National Assembly has a president who is elected by a majority vote of all deputies. Candidates for the President and Vice-President of the National Assembly may be proposed by at least ten deputies.^[5] The vote is by secret ballot.^[6]

The President of the National Assembly performs various duties, the most central of which are convening and presiding over sessions of the National Assembly, representing the National Assembly, signing laws and other acts adopted by the National Assembly, and assigning matters to National Assembly committees for consideration, among others.^[7]

The President of the National Assembly holds office until the election of a new President (even if they were not re-elected to the National Assembly). Following elections and after the President of the Republic convenes the first session of the National Assembly, the outgoing President leads the preparations for the first session of the newly elected National Assembly.^[8]

The position of the President of the National Assembly is political and is more similar to that of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives than to that of the Speaker of the UK House of Commons. The President plays an important role in implementing the government's political agenda in the National Assembly through legislative and other procedures. The President remains a voting member of the national assembly and a member of the parliamentary group of the party on whose list they were elected to the National Assembly. Nevertheless, in accordance with parliamentary practice, the President does not express his political or other views when chairing the sessions, but impartially presides over the sessions of the Assembly. If the President wishes to debate on a topic on the agenda, they hand over the chairing of the sessions to one of the Vice-Presidents for the time being. The same applies to the Vice-Presidents of the National Assembly.

The position of the President of the National Assembly is usually also part of the coalition negotiations for the formation of a new government and the distribution of positions among the coalition parties (it is attributed the weight of two ministerial posts).^[9] The position of the President of the National Assembly usually, but not always, belonged to the second largest coalition party.^[10] In cases where the largest party had significantly more deputies; e.g. SDS in 2004 (Cukjati), SMC in 2014 (Brglez) and Svoboda in 2022 (Klakočar Zupančič), the largest party also retained the position of President of the National Assembly to itself.

The President is assisted in the performance of his duties, particularly in chairing sessions of the National Assembly, by three Vice-Presidents.^[11]

Vice-presidents are elected according to the same procedure as the president, but only after the president has been elected.One of the three vice-presidential positions always belongs to the largest opposition parliamentary group, but this vice-president must also be elected by a majority of votes of all deputies.^[12]

The Council of the Speaker of the National Assembly is an advisory body to the President of Slovenia.^[13]

The Council consists of the President and Vice-Presidents of the National Assembly, leaders of parliamentary groups and deputies of national minorities.^[14]