When the deadline for lodging applications for citizenship expired and when the date determined by the Aliens Act (26 February 1992) approached, the Ministry of the Interior began to prepare for the erasure from the register of permanent residents and destruction of personal documents.
For this purpose the Ministry of the Interior conducted consultations for representatives of Local Administrative Offices who had numerous questions regarding the implementation of the new independence legislation, especially regarding the Aliens Act.
After the consultations the Ministry of the Interior sent the conclusions to all Local Administrative Offices. The conclusions include the instructions on issuing visas, permits for temporary or permanent residence, termination of residence, deportations and dealing with personal documents of foreigners.
Especially important is the instruction that dictates the Local Administrative Offices to determine, during the process when regulating the status matters of foreigners, whether the person possesses public documents (identity card, passport or firearm certificate) issued from the Authorities of the Interior Affairs of Slovenia. The instruction namely state that if the person is arranging the status of a foreigner, the documents must be taken away from him/her. According to the instruction the passport should also be taken away and destroyed, and the person should be referred to acquire a passport of country of their nationality (exceptionally a passport for foreigners could be issued).
Dispatches were sent to the Local Administrative Offices prior to the erasure and related to all citizens of FSR Yugoslavia who had not acquired Slovenian citizenship or at least applied for it. The Ministry of the Interior took a position that they are no longer legally entitled to reside in Slovenia. This internal instruction determined the measures that have not been based in law. Persons, to whom the instructions related, were not notified on these measures.
Handling of the Passports was especially problematic. Passports that were issued under the Passports of the Citizens of FSRY Act should have been valid for two more years after the adoption of the Passports of the Citizens of the Republic of Slovenia Act (25 June 1991), i.e. until 26 June 1993 or until the expiry date if this was sooner. After two years they had to be replaced, but under the new Passports of the Citizens of RS, only citizens of RS could obtain a new passport. Citizens of other republics of former Yugoslavia could exceptionally obtain only a passport for foreigners if they fulfilled the required conditions (refugee status, foreigners with a temporary or permanent residency permit, who didn’t have a valid foreign passport, or other foreigners if there were justified reasons).
The distinction between the passports of the Slovenian citizens and citizens of other republics of former Yugoslavia was therefore not set by the law. This distinction was introduced by the internal instructions without any legal basis. Statutory provisions, which would contain the necessary legal basis for undoing valid passports issued by Slovenia to the citizens of other republics of former Yugoslavia, did not exist.