Miro Cerar

His father Miroslav Cerar (born in 1939) is a multiple European, world, and Olympic pommel horse champion (he also won medals in other gymnastic disciplines), and after the end of his sports career, he worked as a lawyer until his retirement.

He is a founding member and active official of the Olympic Committee of Slovenia.

Cerar’s mother Zdenka Cerar (née Prusnik, 1941–2013) was a national gymnastics champion in her youth, and later, when she worked as a lawyer, she served as State Prosecutor General and Minister of Justice.

Miroslav Cerar Jr. (, known as Miro Cerar ; ) (born 25 August 1963) is a Slovenian law professor and politician.

Cerar was born on 25 August 1963.

After graduating in law, he was employed by the Ljubljana Faculty of Law.

Miro Cerar was born on 25 August 1963 in Ljubljana.

He is the father of three children.

He grew up with his sisters in Ljubljana and Grosuplje.

Cerar started attending Prule Primary School in 1970 and enrolled in Ivan Cankar Grammar School in Ljubljana in 1978.

In the late 1980s, he actively participated in the efforts for the democratisation and state independence of Slovenia.

In the late 1980s, Cerar published a number of research articles and popular science articles, and started asserting himself as a critical legal thinker in the Slovenian public.

From 1982 to 1983, he did his compulsory military service in today’s Podgorica (formerly Titograd, Montenegro), and started studying law in 1983.

In 1983, Cerar enrolled in the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana, and graduated in 1987.

In 1987, he received the Slavko Zore Prize awarded by the United Nations Association of Slovenia for his bachelor's thesis Legal Protection of Trademarks (advisor: Krešimir Puharič).

Upon graduation, he was employed as a teaching assistant at the Theory of Law Department at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana.

In 1988, he was one of the authors of the book Pravni memorandum: Vojaški tožilec versus Borštner, Janša, Tasić, Zavrl (Legal Memorandum: Military Prosecutor vs. Borštner, Janša, Tasič, Zavrl), and in 1989 he participated in writing Pravni memorandum: Svoboda združevanja (Legal Memorandum: Freedom of Association).

Both books called for the enforcement of the rule of law and democratic values, particularly in the light of the then non-democratic pressures of the regime on the democratisation process in Slovenia.

In 1990 and 1991, he participated in drafting the Basic Constitutional Charter on the Sovereignty and Independence of the Republic of Slovenia and the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia.

Between 1992 and 2014, he was a lecturer at the Faculty of Law of Ljubljana University, and an external adviser to the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia for constitutional and other legal matters.

Between 1993 and 1999, he was a correspondent of the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe (based at the New York University School of Law, and previously at the University of Chicago Law School and Central European University in Budapest), and he contributed periodic reports on the development of constitutionalism in Slovenia to the East European Constitutional Review.

In 1993, he obtained his master’s degree from the University of Ljubljana's Faculty of Law with the thesis The Multidimensional Nature of Human Rights and Duties, and in 1999 his doctoral degree from the same faculty with the dissertation (Ir)rationality of Modern Law.

In the 2000–2018 period, in the annual polls conducted by the Ius Software portal (iusinfo.si), he ranked among ten most influential Slovenian lawyers 17 times, and in the 2011–2014 period, users of the Tax Fin-Lex portal voted him the most influential Slovenian legal expert four times.

In 2008, as a Fulbright Fellow, he lectured on comparative constitutional law at the Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco and pursued post-doctoral studies at the University of California School of Law at Berkeley.

These and some other measures made it possible for Slovenia to correct excessive macroeconomic imbalances, which had persisted after 2011.

He was Prime Minister of Slovenia, leading the 12th Government.

He served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in the 13th Government.

He is a full professor at the Chair of Theory and Sociology of Law at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Law.

Before entering politics in 2014, he was known as a jurist and intellectual specialising in the interpretation of constitutionality and the legality of the operation of state authorities.

He advocated the rule of law, constitutional democracy, improved legal culture and higher ethical standards in the society.

In 2014, he entered politics, established the Miro Cerar Party (SMC) and was elected prime minister after his party won the parliamentary elections.

After a number of crisis years, his coalition government (2014–2018) managed to stabilise the political situation and lead the country out of the financial-economic crisis.

The government consolidated public finances, adopted a state asset management strategy and gradually abandoned the austerity measures.

The government encouraged rapid economic recovery and stable economic growth, and started allocating more resources to all social areas.

In 2015 and 2016, in cooperation with local communities and NGOs, Cerar’s government managed to secure the humane and safe treatment and transit of approximately half a million migrants across the Slovenian territory.

From 2018 to 2020, Cerar was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia.

By ensuring balanced foreign policy and good neighbourly relations, he intensified cooperation with the EU core countries, with pronounced relations with Benelux, and the United States.

He advocated Slovenia’s greater opening up into the world.

Among his priorities were economic diplomacy, sustainable development, rule of law, human rights, humanitarian action, and multilateralism.

He was among the most ardent European promoters of the EU enlargement to the Western Balkans.