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Radko Močivnik, Slovenian fighter in the National Liberation Struggle, diplomat, Ambassador, constitutional judge, * 17 March 1925, † 5 February 2021

Private life
Radko Močivnik was born in Ljubljana in 1925 to Franc Močivnik and Marija Močivnik, née Bučar. His younger brother Marjan, long-term headmaster of Šentjernej Primary School, was born in 1930 and died in 2014. In 1943, Radko Močivnik graduated from technical high school in Novo Mesto. He completed the Higher Military Academy in Belgrade, where he also served as a lecturer. In 1967 he graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade under Prof. Dr. Ljubiša Adamović with the thesis Development Decade of the United Nations (Desetletje razvoja Združenih narodov). In 1948 he married Tatjana Ples, who came from a prominent family in Duino near Trieste. Their son Mitja Močivnik, graduate of the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana, was born in 1949. In 1978, he married again, this time with Ida Zajc, née Jelen, from Opatje Selo in the Slovenian Karst, long-time foreign affairs advisor to the President of the RS Milan Kučan and ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia in Hungary, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Moldavia. Their son with Ida is Luka Zajc, an attorney who currently works with UEFA. Radko Močivnik spoke fluent Slovene, French, Italian, English, German, Serbian, and Croatian, and was a recipient of numerous decorations, foreign and domestic.

National Liberation Struggle and military service
Močivnik joined the National Liberation Struggle as a youth activist in 1941, at the age of 16. At technical high school in Novo Mesto he served as secretary of SKOJ (League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia) and joined the CPS (Communist Party of Slovenia) in 1943. He spent time in fascist prisons and in 1942 was taken to the Monigo concentration camp near Treviso, along with 44 students of Novo Mesto high school. On his return from the camp in January 1943 he resumed his activity in the national liberation movement. On 9 September 1943 he joined the armed national liberation forces in the 4 th SNOUB (Slovenian National Liberation Strike Brigade) “Matija Gubec”. In the third battalion of the Gubec Brigade he initially served as the commissar of the company and from 1944 until 8 May 1945 as the commissar of the battalion. During the Trieste crisis, from 1945 to 1948, he served in Aurisina near Trieste in the framework of the Yugoslav military mission with the British XIII corps.

Captain Močivnik (centre) with British and American officers, 1945. Between 1948 and 1949 he was a member of the Yugoslav economic mission in Trieste. He was demobilised from the army in 1960 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Diplomatic service and the Treaty of Osimo
Radko Močivnik began his career as a diplomat as the first secretary at the Embassy of the FPRY (Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia) in FRG (Federal Republic of Germany) in Bonn, from 1955 to 1957. Between 1961 and 1963 he served as a councillor at the Embassy of the FPRY in the Republic of Italy in Rome. During 1963 and 1966 he was economic counsellor at the Embassy of SFRY (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) in the Republic of France in Paris. Between 1968 and 1972 he served as Minister-Counsellor at the Embassy of the SFRY in Rome. Between 1972 and 1975 he was advisor to the federal secretary of foreign affairs of SFRY. In this capacity he was appointed to the state negotiation team charged with the task to definitively define the land and sea boundaries with the Italian side. He took part in the team’s work through all stages of the negotiations, the drafting, and signing of the agreements that were signed on 10 November 1975 in Osimo. The agreements not only finalized the border between Yugoslavia and Italy, but also the western border of the Republic of Slovenia, which was of key importance when Slovenia was in the process of becoming independent.

Signing of the Treaty of Osimo, 1975, Močivnik is the first from the left. From 1975 he served as the President of the Commission for International Relations of the Presidency of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Slovenia. In 1977, President Josip Broz Tito appointed him Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of SFRY to Greece. He served in this capacity until 1981, when he took over as ambassador at the Federal Secretariat for Foreign Affairs until he was appointed constitutional judge.

Constitutional Court of the SFRY
Močivnik was appointed constitutional judge of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1983. At the time, each of the six Yugoslav republics appointed two federal constitutional judges. As a constitutional judge he was instrumental in adopting decisions that contributed to the independence of the Republic of Slovenia, along with the other constitutional judge of SFRY from Slovenia, Prof. Dr. Ivan Kristan, who also served in the period of adoption of key decisions in the process leading to Slovenia’s independence. The first such decision was the assessment of conformity of Amendment X to the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia of 1989 with the Constitution of SFRY. This amendment established the right of the Slovenian nation to self-determination and was adopted as a reaction to the amendments to the constitution of SFRY of 1974, which were adopted by the Yugoslav Federal Assembly in 1988. The latter anticipated the centralisation of Yugoslavia and sought to reduce the autonomy of federal units. The Constitutional Court decided that Amendment X to the Constitution of the SRS was not incompatible with the Constitution of the SFRY. The Constitutional Court also took the legal position that the right to self-determination was not consummated with Slovenia’s accession to the Yugoslav federation. At the end of 1990 the Constitutional Court of SFRY received the initiative for the assessment of conformity of the Slovenian Plebiscite on the Sovereignty and Independence of the Republic of Slovenia Act with the Constitution of SFRY. The initiator – the Federal Chamber of the Assembly of SFRY – proposed issuing an interim order to suspend the referendum. The Constitutional Court rejected the proposed issuance of such an interim order, with which the Slovenian constitutional judges in effect prevented the adoption of a decision that would constitute a legal basis for preventing the plebiscite. The significance of these two decisions of the Constitutional Court were pivotal in that in accordance with the Yugoslav legal order the Constitutional Court of SFRY was the only authority with the competence to decide whether the right of Slovenia to self-determination and the plebiscite on the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Slovenia were in conflict with the Constitution of SFRY and in turn with the Yugoslav legal order. Following the Ten-Day War in Slovenia (Slovenian War of Independence, 27 June 1991 – 7 July 1991) and the conclusion of the Brioni Agreement he was instructed by the Slovenian state authorities to return to Belgrade. At the end of July 1991 the Constitutional Court deliberated on the initiative of the President of the Constitutional Court, Buzadjić, whether the resolution of the presidency of the SFRY of 18 July 1991 concerning the withdrawal of the

Yugoslav People’s Army (JLA) from Slovenia was in conflict with the Constitution of the SFRY. Močivnik and judge Kristan pointed out that such a decision would be in conflict with the Brioni Agreement and would give grounds for a new war in Slovenia. The Constitutional Court did not adopt the decision that would render the decision on the withdrawal of the Yugoslav People’s Army from Slovenia inconsistent with the federal constitution. As a result, the last Yugoslav soldiers left the territory of the Republic of Slovenia on 25 October 1991. Močivnik retired upon his return to Ljubljana at the age of 66.

Death
After the death of his wife Ida Močivnik in 2009 he lived in Grosuplje for some years before he settled in Koper. He died on 5 February 2021 due to age-related health problems.