Parliamentary Committee Chair: "We'll See if Đurđević Will be a Candidate and if She is Acceptable"

ZAGREB, 10 March, 2021 - The chair of the parliamentary Committee on the Constitution, Standing Orders and Political System has said that it would be in the spirit of the Constitution to publish a new call for applications for the Supreme Court president, declining to say if Zlata Đurđević is acceptable to the ruling majority.

"The President must respect the Constitution and under the Constitution, he has the authority to propose a candidate for the Supreme Court president, but he also must respect the legal procedure. That includes the Law on Courts, in line with which a public call is conducted, and the Law on the State Judicial Council (DSV), which specifies conditions a candidate for the Supreme Court president must meet," Dražen Bošnjaković of the ruling HDZ party told reporters in the parliament.

"The Parliament Speaker has already said that he must return the President's proposal for completion as the candidate he has proposed did not submit her application in a public call. Anything that arrives in the parliament must be in line with the law, which is not the case now because an application was not submitted," said Bošnjaković.

There are no special regulations regarding a renewed public call but in the spirit of the system, if no one has applied or if there is no will to propose any of the candidates who have applied, a notification is sent to the DSV that none of the candidates will be proposed and a new public call is advertised, Bošnjaković explained.

As for President Zoran Milanović's candidate Zlata Đurđević's statement that she was willing to apply for the post of Supreme Court president in a new public call, Bošnjaković would not say if she was acceptable to the ruling majority, noting only that that would be seen when and if she applied.

SDP MP: Constitution requires agreement between president, parliamentary majority

The deputy head of the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) parliamentary group, Arsen Bauk, said that Đurđević should be elected by a majority vote in the parliament at the proposal of the president of the republic, and that the procedure was a technical matter at the moment.

If the president and the parliamentary majority reach an agreement on Đurđević, she will be elected, and if they don't, she won't. The Constitution requires agreement between the president and the parliamentary majority, anything else is one-upmanship and amuses the public, Bauk said.

"The law has evidently fully served its purpose because this is the most transparent election of the Supreme Court president ever, it won't be this transparent in the next few election cycles," Bauk said.

"If Đurđević is an acceptable candidate to the HDZ, it makes no difference if she is elected based on the (president's) proposal or if she submits an application in a make-believe public call. If I were to make a joke, I would say that if she were honest, she would ask to be elected in a rigged public call. Or an agreement will be reached on someone else, if possible, but there are four more months left," said Bauk.

Also today, during a parliamentary debate, Bauk criticised Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković for breaching the parliament's standing orders by returning President Milanović's proposal for the election of the Supreme Court president to be completed.

"The Parliament Speaker has breached Article 170 of the Standing Orders because he sent back the President's proposal instead of letting the parliament decide on whether the proposal would be put on the agenda," Bauk said, noting that the president's proposal had all the elements it was required to have under the Standing Orders.

"If there are any objections, they are determined in a debate," Bauk said, adding that he was citing a breach of the Standing Orders "in order to have the topic nominated for discussion by the Committee on the Constitution and Standing Orders."

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