Supreme State Prosecutor's Office

State Prosecutor General

Katarina Bergant graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana in 1994 and, after completing her traineeship at the Ljubljana Higher Court, passed the national bar exam in 1997. In the same year, she became employed as judicial adviser at the District State Prosecutor's Office in Ljubljana, where she was appointed Assistant District State Prosecutor in 2004, District State Prosecutor in 2007, and Senior State Prosecutor in 2018. In 2018, she was appointed head of the Ljubljana District State Prosecutor's Office for a six-year term. In January 2024, she was appointed Supreme State Prosecutor at the Ljubljana District State Prosecutor's Office. One month later, in February 2024, she was appointed Head of the Ljubljana District State Prosecutor's Office for a second six-year term, a position she held until being elected State Prosecutor General of the Republic of Slovenia in April 2024.

A Doctor of Criminal Law Sciences, she has 27 years of experience in criminal law, she has mainly dealt with general crimes and hate speech, i.e. the crime of public incitement to hatred, violence and intolerance. In her work, she has handled demanding and complex cases that have garnered significant attention in the media.

In her research, she has focused primarily on relationships between criminal, constitutional and media law. The subject of her doctoral thesis is entitled "Investigative Journalism in Terms of Criminal Law”, for which she received her doctoral degree cum laude at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana in 2014.

Katarina Bergant was a member of numerous working groups engaged in drafting legislation in the field of prosecution, substantive criminal law and procedural law, as well as legislation in the field of public prosecution management, which were established at the State Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Slovenia. In 2019, she was appointed to the expert working group for drafting amendments to the Mass Media Act at the Ministry of Culture and for drafting amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act at the Ministry of Justice. She is the author of research and professional articles on criminal law and a co-author of the Commentary on the general part of the Criminal Code and the Commentary on the Criminal Procedure Act.

She has participated in many training events and attended conferences in Slovenia and abroad, mainly on the topic of hate speech and other criminal law-related topics. As a visiting lecturer, she has given lectures at various training events and conferences on topics relating to criminal substantive criminal and procedural law, public prosecution management and communication with the media as part of the professional training for heads and directors of prosecution services.

Since 2020, she has been in charge of and a lecturer of the criminal and punitive law course at the MLC Faculty of Management and Law, Ljubljana.