Volume 8 Number 3

Summer 1999

Constitutional Watch
     A country-by-country update on constitutional politics in Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR

Croatia - At this winter's meetings of the Croatian Democratic Union (CDU), President Franjo Tudjman briskly criticized the judiciary, alleging that it was understaffed and could not hand down decisions in a timely manner. He added that the judiciary was still tainted by holdovers from the socialist regime and, therefore, did not deliver sound or valid opinions. Immediately after his comments, both the procurator general, Milan Hranjski, and the president of the Supreme Court, Milan Vukovic, resigned. At the same meetings, prolonged discussions were held on government restructuring. Several prominent CDU members suggested personnel and structural changes in the government. During these discussions, Minister of Justice Milan Ramljak, presuming perhaps that the changes were intended to make the government function more effectively, expressed a desire to make his own ministry stronger and more independent. But later, when he attempted to implement various reforms at his ministry, he was accused of falsifying data regarding the court system.

Having resigned from the Supreme Court, Vukovic was nominated to the Constitutional Court by the House of Countries (Zupanski Dom) under the guidance of President Tudjman. Several Court justices criticized Vukovic's appointment, asking why someone who was driven to resign by the presidentÕs criticisms should afterward be promoted to a higher court. Nonetheless, Vukovic's appointment was approved by the House of Representatives (Zastupnicki Dom). Soon thereafter, on April 3, Minister of Justice Ramljak resigned. By having Vukovic placed on the Constitutional Court, Tudjman apparently hopes to draw the Court under his personal control before parliamentary elections, slated for the end of 1999. In April, Tudjman appointed a 70-year-old professor emeritus of criminal law, Zvonimir Separovic, to head the justice ministry. Separovic is now the oldest minister in the CDU lineup.

Vukovic is a Tudjman ally who launched his career in the 1960s defending Croatian nationalists accused of antistate (that is, anti-Yugoslav) activities. He has, therefore, been close to CDU's nationalist wing since its inception. His influence, however, stems from his close relation with Tudjman. After practicing law for decades, Vukovic was elected to the Constitutional Court in 1991. In 1992, he was appointed president of the Supreme Court. Immediately after his appointment, he provoked a bitter fight with the other Supreme Court judges and then minister of justice Ivica Crnic. The quarrel came after Vukovic presented a list of Supreme Court nominees to the High Judiciary Council. (According to Art. 121 of the Constitution, these judges are appointed by the High Judiciary Council.) Crnic, as minister of justice, and various Supreme Court justices argued that Vukovic's nominees were utterly unqualified. But Vukovic, together with the head of the council, persevered and pushed through his nominees. Crnic immediately resigned from the justice ministry. During his tenure there, Crnic had frequently clashed with CDU members whenever he tried to secure some degree of independence and autonomy for the judiciary. From 1993 to 1995, Vukovic was also head of the Committee for War Crimes in Croatia. While in office, he is known to have proclaimed that not a single Croat, no matter what he has done or who he was, could have committed a war crime. (Allegedly, Vukovic routinely torments his neighbors by playing the Croatian national anthem every morning at 7 a.m. Neighbors have complained but to no avail. He has also proposed that the Supreme Court commence every morning's proceedings with the anthem.)

By placing Vukovic back on the Constitutional Court, Tudjman hopes to consolidate his control of the Court, in order to counterbalance CDU's almost certain loss in the parliamentary elections set for the end of the year. (The exact date for the elections has not yet been established. In an apparent attempt to lower the turnout, CDU now proposes holding elections right after Christmas. Opposition parties have stated that they will boycott the elections if held at that time.) During the past few years, the Court has adopted a somewhat anti-CDU stance and has struck down several government-backed proposals. (For example, the Court ruled that the government should compensate retirees whose pensions did not rise at the same rate as salaries [see Croatia Update, EECR, Vol. 7, No. 3, Summer 1998]. It also declared unconstitutional several articles of a bill that subordinated the Zagreb local government to the central government.) Although the lower house is likely to escape Tudjman's grip, the upper house will not face new elections for another two years and will therefore remain temporarily under CDU control. Tudjman apparently plans to base his power on the upper house and the Constitutional Court. All of the judges of the 11-member Court are up for reelection in the fall, just before parliamentary elections. The judges' terms are for eight years, and there is no limit on the number of times they can be reelected.

Article 105 of the Constitution explains why Tudjman is interested in controlling the Court: the president may be impeached for any violation of the Constitution. The proceedings are initiated by a two-thirds vote in the lower house, but the Court has the final say in any impeachment: The impeachability of the president shall be decided upon by the Constitutional Court by a two-thirds-majority vote of all justices. If the Constitutional Court sustains the impeachment, the duty of the president shall cease by force of the Constitution. Tudjman perhaps fears that a hostile coalition in the lower house could collude with the Constitutional Court to impeach him. In addition, Art. 97 of the Constitution states that the Constitutional Court, on proposal of the government, may decide whether the president is permanently prevented from performing his duties. Given Tudjman's allegedly serious health problems, the Court could possibly remove him on grounds of incapacity.

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In early June, another scandal erupted regarding the secret services and their abuse of surveillance techniques to achieve political or, in some cases, athletic ends. The story broke in early June, when Nacional, an independent weekly, revealed that the secret service, under Tudjman's orders, had tampered with the national soccer championship. This was done by putting numerous soccer-club leaders, journalists, and referees under surveillance in an effort to give Tudjman's favorite soccer club, Croatia Zagreb, the upper hand in the contest. (The team ultimately won.) Immediately after the story was published, the Ministry of Justice announced that it would press charges against the journalists who ran the story. (According to the Law on Media, journalists may be fined or imprisoned for insulting high-ranking state officials.) The ministry also announced that it would discover those who had leaked the highly confidential documents and story to the press. On June 9, Miroslav Separovic, former minister of justice and head of the intelligence services, was arrested for revealing official secrets. Separovic has not been officially linked to the soccer scandal. It is widely known, however, that CDU officials have fingered him as the source of the embarrassing leak.

Independent journalists and opposition members immediately called for Separovic's release. For his part, Separovic, who had resigned from his post in January 1999, claims that his arrest was ordered by Ivan Pasalic, Tudjman's adviser for domestic affairs, who controls CDU's hardline, antireform faction. In the recent past, several high-ranking members of CDU's liberal wing have resigned from government posts, stating that they had been placed under surveillance by the secret services by order of the Pasalic wing. (For more on Pasalic and the abuse of the secret services, see Croatia Update, EECR, Vol. 8, Nos. 1/2, Winter/Spring 1999.) Although the story is still developing, a parliamentary investigative committee will apparently be formed to investigate the link between the secret services and the alleged fixing of the soccer championship. Opposition parties have seized the occasion to call for greater parliamentary control of the secret services.

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Croatia's external debt recently ballooned by $136 million, after two credits for reconstruction of the Croatian Railway were granted by the European Bank ($35 million) and the International Bank for Restoration and Development ($101 million). The money will be used largely for severance payments to workers who will be laid off. As the railway's Program for Modernization explains, $83.4 million is needed to pay severance benefits to approximately 4,700 railway workers. Analysts have warned, however, that the railway's main problem is not the number of employees, which is now half what it was several years ago. The government seems convinced of the need to lay off workers, explaining that the railway's financial situation has deteriorated in the recent years. But many critics have suggested that the government need not resort to mass layoffs to address the surplus labor problem. Instead it could introduce early-retirement packages, extend the railway's services, and use the revenue earned from sales of property. Rumors abound as to the real motive behind the government's plan for modernization. A recent decision that the railway write off the $23.6 million of debt of the ministries of defense and reconstruction has also been questioned.

That the events surrounding the railway have a peculiar nature is illustrated by the recent assault on Ivan Tolic, vice president of the railway engineers union. On April 26, Tolic was brutally attacked by two men who beat him with metal sticks before he managed to escape. Tolic has pointed to the similarity between the attack on him and the fatal assault in 1992 on Milan Krivokuca, Tolics predecessor. In a case that has never been solved, Krivokuca was stabbed to death. Tolic claims that the attack against him resulted from his union activities. At a recent meeting with Prime Minister Zlatko Matesa, Tolic complained that the railway management had signed bad contracts and taken out ill-advised loans. The railway management also sent out announcements, dated April 23, calling a union meeting to discuss the Tolic attack. As Tolic was quick to point out, the date of the announcement predated the date of the attack.

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