4. Conclusions The conducted research shows that the Slovenian national framework concerning deprivation of liberty and alternatives/probation does not have the concept of vulnerability incorporated. It seems that the Commission Recommendation of 27 November 2013 on procedural safeguards for vulnerable persons suspected or accused in criminal proceedings has had no impact in the Slovenian criminal justice system, including the cross-border proceedings. Cross-border proceedings The national legal framework concerning the application of cross-border instruments does not contain any provisions regarding the applicability or the manner of application of EAW to persons with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities or in general persons in a situation of vulnerability. Little is known about the position of persons with psychosocial and/or intellectual disabilities in cross-border proceedings. While it seems that there are few cases of persons with psychosocial and/or intellectual disabilities subjected to cross-border proceedings as indicated by the absence of caselaw and also cases reported by our interviewees, there are reasons for concern that this may also be the result of insufficient identification and assessment mechanisms. The absence of concrete safeguards for persons with psychosocial and/or intellectual disabilities may result in excessively formalistic approaches of the authorities that are incapable of recognising the risks for the fundamental rights of the persons in crossborder proceedings. However, our research shows that there is a general lack of knowledge vis-à-vis the four framework decisions and their application, particularly the framework decisions concerning Transfer of Prisoners, European Supervision Order, and Probation and Alternative Sanctions. It seems that practitioners – individual lawyers, judges and prosecutors only rarely deal with cross-border cases as there is no central authority. This lack of specialisation, not only of lawyers but also judges and prosecutors, could present an issue when it comes to the protection of rights of the requested persons in general. 54