 Jože Pučnik was the brother of Ivan Pučnik, a farmer and politician, who was initially member of the Communist Party and later also became a dissident and co-founder of the Slovenian Peasant Union in 1989.Jože Pučnik was married twice.After his first release from jail in 1963, he met Irena Žerjal, a young Slovene author from Trieste, Italy, who studied Slavic philology in Ljubljana.