Mirta Matić sworn-in as new President of the Supreme Court

The position of President of the Supreme Court has been vacant since March 8th of last year, when the sitting president, Radovan Dobronić, died of cancer. The process of filling the vacancy was a long and drawn out one full of political intrigue and bickering between the incumbent majority and opposition in Croatian Parliament.

A week after being confirmed by MPs in Croatian Parliament, Mirta Matić was officially sworn-in as President of the Supreme Court on Friday. The position also means that she is simultaneously the President of the State Election Commission. Matić took her oath of office before Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković, swearing to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land in administering the office.

After being sworn in, Matić announced that she would strive to restore trust in the judiciary, especially in light of this past weekend's horrific murder in the town of Drniš, that claimed the life of nineteen year-old Luka Milovac. The murder is even more disturbing given that it was committed by Kristijan Aleksić, a career criminal with an existing murder conviction, and for whom two Šibenik Municipal Court Judges are currently facing disciplinary action after they failed to bring an indictment against him to trial for more than two years.

“A man for whom an indictment sat in a drawer for more than two years, because a court, for reasons that right now I cannot defend, did not bring his indictment to trial. Any judge who ignores a case, who allows the statute of limitations to expire in cases where that should never have happened, who is in arrears without just cause, and who judges with bias, must be held to account,” Matić said.

Matić concluded that her first order of business will be to resolve the backlog of cases before the court.

For his part Jandroković wished her a successful mandate.

Source: HRT