ISSN: 2560-1601
Vol. 39, No. 1 (HR)
April 2021
Croatia political briefing: Political Clashing Over the Election of the Supreme Court's President Valentino Petrović
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Political Clashing Over the Election of the Supreme Court's President
Summary
In this paper, we shall analyze the current judicial crisis that emerged a month ago when President Zoran Milanović decided to support Zlata Đurđević as a candidate for the position of the Supreme Court's president. However, Đurđević was not among those who applied through the official procedure and, therefore, is not considered a candidate. This sprawled a long-lasting feud between the President and the Government, while at the same time, a new corruption affair in the Croatian judiciary occurred.
Introduction
Last March was far from boring when we are talking about the dynamics of the Croatian political landscape, the interaction between President Zoran Milanović and almost everyone who found the courage to oppose his opinion on the election of the Supreme Courts' new president, and the consequent public debates and accusations on the corruption and clientelism practices in the Croatian judiciary. As we in Croatia all know, the judiciary has been perceived as widely negative as it is; almost every opinion poll conducted recently, or in the last few years, has shown that Croatians do not have trust in the judicial branch of government. The latest events only confirm the image of the judiciary as widely unpopular and prone to scandals.
The Origins of the Issue
What started as a minor media report in February, covered and placed on the margins of the evening news, eventually gained an impetus to become a first-rate, nationwide topic that revealed much more than what we first expected. However, to introduce everything in the right order, we shall start from the very beginning. In late February, President Milanović was often asked by the media who will be his candidate or his nominee for the position of the President of the Supreme Court. In Croatia, a person who wishes to enter the race for the said position needs to send an official application in a given time span to be considered as a candidate in the first place. The President can, however, nominate his candidate or a person he supports, but also considering an open call mandatory for all candidates. When the names of the candidates
1 who have applied for the position became public, Milanović said that he does not support any of these people and that he will propose a candidate of his own. He commented: “I have been thinking about this for a while, talking about it and trying to keep it discreet. I want to come out in public with my proposal in good time, proposing a person who meets my criteria and who is acceptable to both the ruling majority and the opposition”1. The President also underlined that he does not want to repeat a situation from four years ago when, in his words, the then- incumbent Kolinda Grabar Kitarović had a candidate who did not fit the image that Prime Minister Andrej Plenković had, which resulted in a candidate who was appointed at the last minute2. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened again, as it was quickly shown that Milanović’s proposal was not met favorably by the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), which provoked tense relations and various insults between him and the Prime Minister.
The Election of a New President of the Supreme Court
The first person who decided to counter Milanović was Gordan Jandroković, the Prime Minister’s right hand and the speaker of the Croatian Parliament. Jandroković has a long public feud with Milanović but had to react since he was the first person to decide whether or not Milanović’s proposal is acceptable. However, since the deadline for submitting the applications was over, Jandroković decided to refuse Milanović’s candidate and ask him to resubmit the motion within 15 days, as it is prescribed by Article 170 of the legislature's rule book. Needless to say, Jandroković did not have to wait too long for the President’s response. Milanović claimed that the open call for the position of President of the Supreme Court has not been transparent and that his candidate Zlata Đurđević, a professor at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb, is by far the best candidate among all others, including those who applied for the position according to deadlines. As for Jandroković, Milanović said: "He stole the document I sent to the Parliament and allowed himself to interpret it (…) and assess legality of my recommendation"; after that, he continued: "He or anyone else can do what they want with documents and proposals. That is (ruling party) HDZ's message to Parliament and its partners in the Government (…) and if they want to agree to Jandroković shelving issues at his discretion
1 N.N. 2021. Milanović Soon to Announce Name of His Candidate for Supreme Court President. Total Croatia News https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/50758-milanovic-soon-to-announce-name-of-his-candidate-for- supreme-court-president 2 N.N. 2021. Milanović Soon to Announce Name of His Candidate for Supreme Court President. Total Croatia News https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/50758-milanovic-soon-to-announce-name-of-his-candidate-for- supreme-court-president
2 and conducting a legislative analysis of a proposal’s admissibility, let them do so. That is the road to tyranny”3.
Of course, both sides included in this clash over the candidates and the legality of the procedure have their groundings and are willing to go the distance in their arguments. On the one hand, Milanović claims that open calls, as such, are not open at all, meaning that it is already known in advance who will eventually take the positions. From the realistic perspective, we could agree with the President, especially taking into account the fact that this particular position is concerning judiciary which is, as it is described in the introduction, not very well perceived among the people for its transparency and independence from politics. On the other hand, the Government led by Andrej Plenković is claiming that the President did not follow the rules and that his candidate does not have legality nor legitimacy since Đurđević did not apply to the open call. By late March the Constitutional Court ruled that the President has the authority to propose candidates for the position of the Supreme Court’s president, but only from those applicants who sent their official applications. Normally, this would signal a red light for Milanović not to continue with his agenda, but knowing his character and persistency, he was merely delayed as soon after he said that it is his constitutional right to nominate a candidate. He further decided to criticize the legislature for not questioning Jandroković’s decision on the matter of rejecting his motion regarding Đurđević’s application and for not including it in the parliamentary agenda4.
Corruption Accusations Against Osijek Judges
Apart from political turmoil created around the election of the Supreme Court’s new president, the Croatian judiciary, in its apparent rightfulness and fairness, has once again been a subject of numerous debates after Zdravko Mamić, the former chief of football club Dinamo Zagreb, accused two judges from the Osijek County Court of corruption, while calling Judge Zvonko Vrban, the president of that very Court, a criminal. Mamić was previously sentenced to six and a half years in prison for siphoning HRK 116 million out of Dinamo Zagreb and
3 N.N. 2021. President Zoran Milanović: "Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković Has Done the Impermissible". Total Croatia News https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/51351-president-zoran-milanovic-parliament-speaker-gordan- jandrokovic-has-done-the-impermissible 4 N.N. 2021. President Zoran Milanović Due to Pick Supreme Court Chief Justice Nominee From Applicants. Total Croatia News https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/51631-president-zoran-milanovic-due-to-pick-supreme-court- chief-justice-nominee-from-applicants
3 defrauding the Croatian state of about HRK 12 million in unpaid taxes5. Moreover, he was closely related to the governing HDZ, especially former President Grabar-Kitarović, who also had to give an official statement on this matter. Mamić is currently in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and cannot be extradited to Croatia, while he is refusing to come back as he holds dual citizenships. In his efforts to undermine his sentence as well as the Croatian judiciary in general, Mamić leaked personal photos of him associating with the two aforementioned judges and accused them of extortion and taking a bribe. Vrban, who was too mentioned in Mamić’s exposé, said: “It is not normal or appropriate for judges who decide on the fate of other people (…) to associate with that sort of people and to come into contact with those persons outside the courthouse where they will decide on their fate”6. Đuro Sessa, a current president of the Supreme Court, has also apparently been involved in all this, as Mamić claims that he would often, in person, bring money to Sessa’s office to make him change his verdicts. After this, the MPs from the Bridge party (Most) started collecting signatures to initiate Sessa’s removal from the Office. They said: “…the recent events seriously undermine the reputation of and trust in the Croatian judiciary, both the reputation of individual judges and of the judiciary as a whole”7. To put everything into a perspective, Sessa is among the three candidates for his current position, while his candidacy is strongly disapproved by President Zoran Milanović.
Conclusion
All in all, we could conclude this piece by saying that new has actually been revealed, apart from these findings provided by Mamić, that still need to be investigated by the Office of the Chief State Prosecutor (DORH). Judiciary in Croatia is far from being considered politically independent and righteous, while cases like Mamić’s only confirm that assumption among Croatian people. And perhaps we shall have to wait for quite some time before we witness some core changes, as judicial reform is always a hot topic during political campaigns, but, eventually, nothing happens.
5 Lakić, Mladen. 2018. Mamic Refuses to Face Justice in Croatia. Balkaninsight.com https://balkaninsight.com/2018/06/15/croatian-football-boss-rejects-voluntary-extradition-from-bosnia-06-15- 2018/ 6 N.N. 2021. Two judges face removal from office due to having associated with Mamic. Hr.n1info.com https://hr.n1info.com/english/news/two-judges-face-removal-from-office-due-to-having-associated-with- mamic/ 7 N.N. 2021. MOST Starts Collecting MPs' Signatures to Dismiss Supreme Court President. Total Croatia News https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/51670-bridge-party-starts-collecting-mps-signatures-to-dismiss- supreme-court-president
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