The erasure from the register of permanent residents implemented by the administrative bodies of the Republic of Slovenia was an arbitrary act that did not have any basis in the law, as was established by the Constitutional Court. The erasure mainly (but not exclusively) affected people born in other republics of the former Yugoslavia who had Yugoslav citizenship and also citizenship of another republic of the former Yugoslavia, but lived in the former Socialist Republic of Slovenia where they had permanent addresses.

When Slovenia became an independent country, on 25 June 1991, citizens of the former Socialist Republic of Slovenia automatically became citizens of the new country, the Republic of Slovenia. Further, according to Article 40 of the Citizenship of the Republic of Slovenia Act, all citizens of other republics of the former SFRY with permanent addresses in the Socialist Republic of Slovenia had the right to apply for Slovenian citizenship within six months from the date of independence.

Those who did not obtain citizenship (because they failed to apply for whatever reason, or their application was refused or discarded or the procedure was terminated), lost their permanent residence status. They were deprived of their permanent residence status arbitrarily; local authorities carried out this measure in accordance with instructions from the Ministry of the Interior, at that time headed by the then Minister Igor Bavčar and the then State Secretary of the Interior, Slavko Debelak. With the loss of status, they also lost all economic and social rights tied to permanent resident status.

For more on the erasure itself, see Dedić at al. 2003, Lipovec Čebron and Zorn 2008, and Kogovšek et al. 2010.