After Ivan Turudic took office as State Attorney- General on Monday, the Office of the President of the Republic issued a press release stating that Croatia has now lost another independent institution.

The new State Attorney-General Ivan Turudic, who was elected by the parliamentary majority in February, took over from his predecessor Zlata Hrvoj-Sipek on Monday. He also held a press conference at which he spoke about the first steps. Afterwards, the President of the Republic, Zoran Milanovic, addressed the public with a statement.

We are forwarding the press release from the Office of the President of the Republic in full:

“Today, the Republic of Croatia is without another independent institution, as the leadership of the State Attorney’s Office (DORH) of the Republic of Croatia has been taken over by Ivan Turudic, who has publicly and unequivocally declared his closeness and affiliation to the HDZ party. The new State Attorney-General was elected at the sole will of Andrej Plenkovic and the HDZ, with the political support of some MPs who have been unconditionally loyal to the HDZ both in the past and today.

Through ‘their boy’ Ivan Turudic, the HDZ has taken control of the most important institution of law enforcement in the Republic of Croatia, which contradicts the constitutional definition of the role of DORH as an independent and autonomous judicial body. Andrej Plenkovic and the HDZ not only placed the DORH as an institution under party control, but also took control of the criminal proceedings themselves, because they had previously passed the Lex AP, which not only prevents the publication of information about investigations, but also penalises anyone who makes this information public.

The aim of the Lex AP is to prevent public control over the work of the institutions of repressive prosecution, thus enabling Turudic to decide independently and without any control who he would and would not prosecute. And so the messages he exchanged with Josipa Rimac would never become public, because whoever published them would be persecuted by the same Turudic. For the HDZ and Turudic, corruption is not a problem as long as it is not discussed publicly. For the Croatian judiciary, this marked the beginning of a dark period of one-party rule, the likes of which had not been seen since the independence of the Croatian state.

The appointment of Ivan Turudic as State Attorney-General, despite all warnings and data proving that, as President of the Court, he secretly met and socialised with the man under investigation before the same court – which permanently disqualifies him for this office – cannot and will not become an acceptable model of leadership in Croatia. There is no political, professional or moral statute of limitations that could wash Ivan Turudic clean of this defilement of the judicial profession and his professional unethics. Therefore, nothing will be able to justify his appointment, just as Andrej Plenkovic and the HDZ and their sympathisers will not be able to remove the stamp of the protector of crime and corruption.

Independent and autonomous institutions, including the DORH, freed from the party yoke of the HDZ, must be the imperative of political action for all those who want the best for the Republic of Croatia.

The arbitrariness of Andrej Plenkovic and the HDZ, whose goal is to control the entire country, reminds us that it is all the more important today to defend the institutions of the Croatian state.”