The Supreme Court should get a president. According to HDZ sources, the ruling majority will vote on Friday, May 15 Mirta Matićjudge of the High Commercial Court, for president of the Supreme Court.
The election of Matić to the head of the Supreme Court, which has been since March last year, when he died Radovan Dobronićwithout a president, the HDZ does not require the election of three constitutional judges.
According to well-informed sources from the ruling party, the majority will vote for Mirta Matić, regardless of whether the SDP will support the three candidates for judges of the Constitutional Court that the Parliamentary Committee for the Constitution, Rules of Procedure and Political System referred to the plenary session last week.
– If the SDP wants to come to an agreement, we can also elect constitutional judges on the same day – says the interlocutor from the HDZ.
During the afternoon, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković confirmed that the majority will support Matić, read more HERE
President of the Republic Zoran Milanović on Tuesday morning, he announced that he proposed to the Croatian Parliament that judge Mirta Matić be elected as the president of the Supreme Court.
With this step, Milanović fulfilled his role in the process of electing the president of the Supreme Court, and everything, at least formally, remained with the HDZ. According to the law, the President of the Supreme Court is elected by the majority of members of the Parliament, and after the General Session of the Supreme Court and the Parliamentary Committee for the Judiciary have given their opinion on the candidates, he is proposed by the President of the Republic.
Since he is the prime minister and president of the HDZ Andrej Plenković the election of the President of the Supreme Court was initially tied to the election of three constitutional judges, which SDP disagreed with from the beginning, the election of the President of the Supreme Court, as well as the election of constitutional judges, at one point reached a dead end.
Since constitutional judges are elected by a two-thirds majority, it is necessary to reach an agreement on the candidates. Unofficial talks between HDZ and SDP about constitutional judges were opened, but recently everything fell apart again when HDZ announced that an agreement had been reached, and especially after Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said that a judge of the Supreme Court should enter the Constitutional Court at HDZ’s proposal Željko Pajalić and a lawyer Mladen Sucevic and former constitutional judge Goran Selanecproposed by the left opposition.
In a statement to Jutarnji list, the president of the SDP Siniša Hajdaš Dončić he said that a new competition for constitutional judges can be announced now, because his party will not agree to the model that Plenković is forcefully imposing. Admittedly, Hajdaš Dončić made this statement before we found out that the HDZ will elect a president of the Supreme Court, and thus gave the opposition the argument that they are being blackmailed by tying the election of constitutional judges to the head of the Supreme Court. The responsibility for the (non)election of constitutional judges will remain with the opposition, which will have a hard time explaining to the general public why it does not accept two candidates who enjoy a high reputation in their profession and are in no way connected to politics or ideologically colored.
When it comes to the election of the president of the Supreme Court, after the third competition it seemed that it would pass without major difficulties and doubts. However, everything got a little complicated and dragged out since he is the president of Most Nikola Grmojawho is also the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Justice, announced that Milanović intends to nominate a person who allegedly used his position to help his ex-husband disclosed information from the investigation.
This issue was also raised during the hearing of the candidate before the Parliamentary Committee for Justice, and then Judge Matić rejected all the accusations.
– I went from being a witness in a criminal proceeding to being a defendant without an indictment and a convict without a verdict by applying for this competition – she said at the Committee for the Judiciary. When it was questioned whether she had any role in the proceedings against her ex-husband, it was also revealed that the police had been illegally wiretapping her for several months, but that fell into the background.
