Supreme Court President Radovan Dobronic told the Jutarnji List daily on Saturday that the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic cabinet behaves as if it were the employer of judges, and that statements of the PM and the justice minister were such as if there was no separation of the executive powers and courts.

This system of the unity of those branches of power had existed until 1990s and judges cannot accept that, Dobronic told the daily newspaper.

After the Association of Croatian Judges (UHS) announced a work -to-rule action, Dobronic says that the issue of the indexation of judges’ salaries does not fall within trade union negotiations, how it is presented by the government in the public.

Dobronic says that “even (the first Croatian president) Franjo Tudjman showed a better understanding of and higher respect for the independence of the judiciary than PM Plenkovic.”

Dobronic says that the premier does not want to talk to him, and that the government turns a deaf ear to appeals for the solution of systemic issues which lead to the judiciary being overloaded with tens of thousands of cases.

In a message to judges who on Friday rejected the government’s offer of an increase in their entitlements, demanding wage indexation and announcing a work-to-rule, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said they would not achieve anything with “pre-election” blackmail, calling on them to “be reasonable”.

Plenkovic said that the announced work-to-rule was blackmail and that it was not good for the public perception of the judiciary, judges and prosecutors.

“The timing is simply wrong, I cannot believe this is happening,” he said, noting that in 2023 judges’ pay was increased by €583 and that now an increase in their entitlements was being offered to them.

Dobronic: Plenkovic treats judges the same as other civil servants and public employees

Dobronic says that such statements show that Plenkovic treats judges the same as other civil servants and public employees.

“He (Plenkovic) interprets the Association’s demands as judges’ legitimate right to ask for a higher pay just as other civil servants. In this contexts, he puts the government in the role of the employer of judges. He furthermore places all that in the political context saying that his government has increased judges’ wages unlike the SDP government which reduced their wages twice and yet he could not remember that there was any work-to-rule (in that period),” Dobronic said.

The Chief Justice says that the PM also forgot that judges also have a separate law on their salaries for a long time, while the PM comments on the situation as if such a law did not exist.

“However, this does not concern one law but also the constitutional status of judges. It is clear that neither the premier nor the general public are aware that the profession of judges is the only one in which the wages are not determined by the market or by demand and supply and collective negotiations,” said Dobronic underscoring that wages are a guarantee for judges’ formal and real material independence and they must be high to provide judges with this independence and dignity.

(Hina) ms