State Attorney General Zlata Hrvoj Sipek and former USKOK anti-corruption office director Vanja Marusic will be invited to a session of the parliamentary Judiciary Committee to provide information that would help clear up the circumstances of Marusic's recent resignation, the Committee decided on Thursday.
The Committee made the decision unanimously, rejecting Social Democrats MP Vesna Nad’s proposal that Justice Minister Ivan Malenica, too, be invited to the session.
The HDZ supports thematic sessions when sensitive topics of public interest are concerned, said HDZ MP Krunoslav Katicic.
The request for the Committee session was made by the parliamentary opposition, which believes that the circumstances of Marusic’s resignation are unclear and that her leaving because of a traffic accident caused by her driver a year ago is not the real reason but the result of pressure from the government.
“Citizens elect MPs and MPs elect the prime minister and the state attorney general, and we believe that when major personnel changes are made, those who appoint those officials should be informed accordingly, as should the public,” said SDP MP Misel Jaksic.
“To resign over one’s driver’s traffic accident, I have never heard a stupider reason for such a move,” said Daniel Spajic of the Homeland Movement, adding that “the Office of the State Attorney General (DORH) has been in the grip of politics and every attorney general has kept cases involving different politicians in the drawer.”
Sandra Bencic (We Can!) said that shedding light on Marusic’s resignation was a good step towards restoring citizens’ trust in the judiciary.
Grmoja: Without government’s green light Hrvoj Sipek won’t attend session
MP Nikola Grmoja (Bridge) believes that without a green light from the government Hrvoj Sipek will not attend the session of the Judiciary Committee considering that she previously did not attend a session of the Anti-Corruption Council either.
“Is this telling you that DORH is an independent institution or that it is under the government’s full control,” he asked.
Grmoja, too, believes the traffic accident has nothing to do with Marusic’s resignation.
The resignation is either due to a breach of the EU regulation under which DORH and USKOK must submit to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office all cases that concern mismanagement of EU funds or due to Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic’s not liking his name being mentioned in individual files, Grmoja said. Or maybe Plenković faced possible criminal prosecution, he added.
Vesna Nad said that Justice Minister Malenica is in charge of the judicial administration and supervises its financial affairs and should have been invited to the session to say how it was possible that it had taken a year to realise that an unlawful payment had been made for compensation for the damage caused in the traffic accident caused by Marusic’s driver.
Karolina Vidovic Kristo (Justice and Determination) congratulated the Committee on “waking up from hibernation” to realise that there were problems in the judiciary, recalling that she had requested a session of the Committee two years ago to discuss the work of DORH and USKOK.
“Marusic is no victim, the judiciary has been politicised for the past 22 years, there is no rule of law and that is why there are no investments in the country and why citizens are emigrating,” she said.
The date of the thematic session of the Judiciary Committee will be determined in the next couple of days, SDP MP Jaksic said.
