The extraordinary session of the Croatian parliament on the functioning of the judiciary began on Friday morning with ruling and opposition MPs trading accusations and criticisms and the Speaker issuing warnings of reprimand.

At President Zoran Milanovic’s request, Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic convened this extraordinary parliamentary session for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday over the functioning of the judiciary in light of the ongoing strike and to establish responsibility for the financial damage caused by surplus gas sales by the HEP power utility.

The first issue is being debated on Friday, the second one is on the agenda on Saturday, while voting is envisaged for Sunday.

At the start of today’s session the opposition continued to accuse the government of turning a deaf ear to the demands of the disgruntled striking judicial workers,  whose industrial action started on 5 June.

Domagoj Hajdukovic (Social Democrats) said that the government was behaving like “an ostrich that is burying its head in the sand in anticipation that problems would disappear with the passage of time.”

Nino Raspudic (Most party) accused Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic of paralysing the judicial system and called him “an arrogant bureaucrat who ignores and belittles the strike of judicial employees.”

Speaker: President was invited, but sent no reply

As for comments that President Milanovic, who is the sponsor of the two items on the agenda of this extraordinary meeting, was not invited to the session, Speaker Jandrokovic said he had invited him officially but the president had not replied.

As for Milanovic’s comments that he would not attend session because he had not been invited to the parliamentary sessions when his nominees President of the Supreme Court were on the parliament’s agenda, Jandroković said that in the case of nomination of Professor Zlata Djurdjevic for that post, Milanovic had himself said that he would not come and when the nomination of the current President Radovan Dobronic was on the agenda, the president was informed of the session and the agenda in the same way as other sponsors of the motions.

However, he had not come to that meeting, Jandrokovic said while responding to criticism from the opposition that the President should have been invited to today’s session.

The records kept by parliament since 2005 show that  none of the heads of state had attended parliamentary sessions to explain their proposals for the nomination of the Supreme Court President and we had conducted all discussions in a normal manner, said Jandrokovic.

President Milanovic said on Thursday he would not attend the extraordinary parliamentary session he convened, and that the strike in the judiciary was the main destabilising factor in the state.

“The president’s place is not in parliament,” he said in Krapinske Toplice, north of Zagreb, where he attended a session of the Municipal Council held on the occasion of the municipality’s day.

As for Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic’s claim that he expected Milanovic at the extraordinary session, Milanovic asked why Jandrokovic did not expect his attendance when he was proposing a candidate for Supreme Court President.

Milanovic said that by failing to invite him to parliament to explain his proposal, “you said everything, the president’s place is not in parliament.”