MARJETA COTMAN, MINISTER

Marjeta Cotman was born in Ptuj on 2 October 1956. She is married, a mother of two children and lives in Ljubljana.

She graduated from the Faculty of Law, Ljubljana, in 1984. Her career started with a traineeship with the Higher Court in Maribor; she passed her bar examination in 1986 and was employed by Ormož Municipality as a financial clerk and GAPA inspector.

In 1988, she was engaged by the Surveying and Mapping Authority of the Republic of Slovenia as an independent legal and administrative adviser; in 1992, she held a position of an Adviser to the Minister at the Ministry of Justice and Administration and was responsible for the field of conscientious objection to military service. In 1993, she was employed by the National Assembly of the RS as a Head of the Petition Department and a secretary of the Commission for Petitions. She was in charge of the Department; furthermore, her duties involve expert consideration of petitions, applications and complaints addressed to the National Assembly concerning citizenship, property affairs, criminal matters, social security, housing, municipal, labour-law matters and matters relating to the environmental issues. In the 1996 to 2003 period she was a member of the examining board for professional examination of administrative workers as an examiner for general part and special part on General Administrative Procedure Act.

From 2003 to her appointment to the position of State Secretary at the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs, she worked as a misdemeanours judge with the Misdemeanours Judge in Ljubljana. In 2004, Ms Cotman was appointed a member of the board for examining and conducting professional examinations for heading and deciding within the misdemeanours proceedings at the Academy of Administration with the Ministry of the Interior.

On 18 December 2006, she was appointed Minister of Labour, Family and Social Affairs.