Možemo: judges’ mandates expire today because of Plenković

The Možemo! MP warned on Sunday that the mandates of three Constitutional Court judges expired on Sunday and that Croatia has not had a Supreme Court President for more than a year because the Prime Minister was blackmailing parliament in a bid to have to the two election processes linked.

Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Možemo! MP Urša Raukar-Gamulin accused Prime Minister Andrej Plenković of the ongoing stand-still in the two highest courts in the country: “Plenković brought this situation to pass through blackmail and political barter in a bid to merge the processes of electing the president of the Supreme Court and three constitutional judges. The message is clear, he wants his majority in the Constitutional Court.”

She went on to emphasize that the two processes are separate and that no law provides for their being merged, emphasizing that all constitutional experts in the country had agreed that the proposed merger of the two processes was unconstitutional. Raukar-Gamulin went on to say that a political majority on the Constitutional Court was at odds with the institution’s core function because it is by definition not a political body.

The Možemo! MP went on to accuse Plenković and the HDZ-led majority of delaying the process of electing a new president of the Supreme Court for more than a year, characterizing this as yet another attack on democracy.

For his part Prime Minister Plenković maintains that unifying the process of electing judges to the Constitutional Court and appointing a new Supreme Court President did not constitute blackmail.

In response Raukar-Gamulin noted that according to the reputable Swedish institute V-Dem Croatia is no longer in a democratic process but is moving towards an autocracy. Additionally she noted that the European Chief Prosecutor, Laura Kovesci, had stated that the European Public Prosecutor's Office had encountered major problems in the fight against corruption in Croatia.

Source: HRT