Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) whip Branko Bacic said on Tuesday that the ruling majority would check to establish if the Opposition's motion to set up a parliamentary inquiry commission is in line with the Constitution and the law.

“Our stance is that the questions that need to be answered through the work of the inquiry commission are legitimate and that the ruling majority also wants to identify any possible unlawfulness in the work of law enforcement institutions. However, we are not certain if the questions, as they have been written, are completely in line with the law and the Constitution,” Bacic told reporters after a meeting of the ruling coalition in Government House.

He announced that that is why the ruling majority would in the next few days test the legality and constitutionality of the proposal, after which they will make a final decision.

Earlier on Tuesday, Opposition caucuses on presented a draft motion for establishing a parliamentary inquiry commission to be tasked with determining any possible disruption, disturbance or other unacceptable influence by authorities on independent investigations and on the prosecution of corruption.

The law stipulates that inquiry commissions are established for specifically defined matters, said Bacic. He recalled that in the past 24 years, 11 inquiry commissions had been established in the parliament and each was established for specific questions related to topics that needed to be resolved that society was interested in.

“Until now there has not been one case that commission was established to answer general questions,” he claimed.

The reason that the legality of the proposal is being tested is also related to the fact that bodies already exist in the parliament that can answer the questions the commission wishes to deal with, he added.

They are the Domestic Policy and National Security Committee, Judiciary Committee, and the National Council for Monitoring Anti-Corruption Strategy Implementation, Bacic said and underlined that all three are chaired by opposition MPs.

Asked whether he still believes that the power the commission would have would be similar to the communist-era OZNA intelligence agency, Bacic said that “the simple fact that parliamentarians will question the work of judges, the work of the Constitutional Court,” give the impression that its power is that broad that it is “somewhere at the level of the OZNA.”

“It is incomprehensible to me to see that an inquiry commission calls out judges to interpret certain court proceedings that are being conducted in a court. That is why I said that if the commission was to have that power even the OZNA would have been envious of it. I said that at the start and I stand by that,” he said.