The president of the Zagreb Commercial Court, Nino Radic, on Thursday dismissed claims by a former judge and recently elected member of the European Parliament, Mislav Kolakusic, who, he said, was continually and falsely accusing him on social networks and in media outlets of being a source of corruption in Croatia.

Radic rejected Kolakusic’s claim that as court president he had personally allocated 7,113 cases to judges who were his yes-men.

Commenting on Kolakusic’s accusations of corruption in the allocation of cases at the Commercial Court, Radic said that they were false and “exceptionally sensationalist”, as evidenced by a check that did not identify any breaches regarding the 7,113 cases.

He added that according to a Justice Ministry report, in the past three years only two, entirely legal cases of personally handing out files were identified at the Commercial Court – one was allocated following a request to that effect and the other case concerned the joining of two cases, for which Kolakusic personally signed the ruling.

Radic claims that Kolakusic is “aggressively publishing untruths in the media arena and disseminating them via social networks which he edits very professionally.”

Radic believes that by constantly repeating lies, Kolakusic “influences public opinion and unfoundedly jeopardises and causes harm to the work of the Commercial Court and the court’s president.”

Radic notes that as the court’s president, he is not allowed to make public appearances the way Kolakusic is and that unlike Kolakusic, he respects the rule of law in public communication, particularly the code of conduct of judges.

He adds that regardless of all this, he hopes that Kolakusic will protect Croatia’s interests in the European Parliament conscientiously, with commitment and without saying lies.