A documentary about judicial corruption that highlights the urgent need for accountability
On 17 August I was sent a link to a documentary film named “Judicial Mafia” in Croatian, the first part of a trilogy about the criminal Croatian judiciary.
The film has not been picked up in the Croatian media space except for a small channel, Mreža TV, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina the film was broadcast on ATV.
Although the film is about corruption in the judiciary in Croatia and its causes, the film gives insight into the world of judicial corruption, and how it is entwined with politicisation of the courts, nepotism and crime which is relevant in many countries. I suspect that people from many countries, particularly the UK and USA, will recognise the political and legal sleights of hand described, maybe in slightly different forms. Especially other victims of the “family courts”.
Victims of miscarriage of justice would do well to study the transcript, which I have translated into English and am publishing below with the kind permission of the film’s director, Darko Petričić, the author of several books on the subject of institutional corruption in Croatia.
Anyone with an interest in how we can reform our justice system to be more ethical and grounded in common sense may enjoy studying the transcript, pending a release of the film with subtitles. But the written form lends itself well to close study.
In the UK, we once used to be proud of our justice system. But it appears, at least where family law is concerned, it has sunk to the same level as the most corrupt country in Europe, because that is the place that Croatia sadly occupies today according to the EU Justice Scoreboard.
But that’s not all. As the film points out, and which my own experience confirms, the EU is not without its own problems with corruption either – which extend all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights, the European Ombudsman and the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The film talks about the European Court in Strasbourg, and I, like all the family court victims I have spoken to who applied to that court, can confirm that what is said in this film is, unfortunately, correct.
Judicial and institutional corruption is a threat to democracy and national security, and family court victims are the canaries in the coalmine. This is why it it imperative that our Government get to grips with it, because the crime that is allowed to fester in these secret courts manifests elsewhere too.
As is pointed out in the film, without a functioning justice system people are forced to take matters into their own hands. In the summer of 2024, we have seen this play out on the streets of the UK with disastrous consequences for public order and safety. At the heart of the riots in Leeds and other cities were, drowned out by a cacophony about racism, concerns about the unwarranted and violent removal of children from their families by social services and the police.
That family was a Roma family from Romania. And in this Croatian film are faces that are familiar to me, Roma families who had been on protests I joined in Zagreb as a mother whose children were also taken due to acts of blatant judicial vandalism. The children of these Roma families were taken or died unnatural deaths in hospital, leading to serious questions as to human trafficking through the social services and hospitals – which we are also seeing in England.
As a mother whose children are currently falsely imprisoned in Croatia due to judicial corruption, and as someone who became aware that this same corruption is impacting the courts in the UK, USA and most western countries, I believe it is high time we talked about the phenomena discussed in this fascinating film.
It is useful, as a litigant who has experienced fraud in the courts, to uncover the tricks that unscrupulous judges play, and I am adding to my list of judicial sleights of hand each day.
It is angering, because in playing these tricks, judges, politicians and other contemptible individuals degraded me and stole years from the childhood of my two innocent little boys. That is unforgivable.
It is high time those responsible paid for these dirty tricks and crimes against the most vulnerable with public exposure and prosecution.
It is high time we fixed the systemic problems throughout our justice system, as we are witnessing a rupture of the social contract which will have dangerous consequences if not brought under control.
In this film, my wonderful friend, Mrs Gordana Sprajc, a campaigner against corruption, offers some simple yet powerful solutions. We need judicial accountability, and independent, effective scrutiny. We need public prosecutors who are people the public trust, not expedient political appointments.
Right now, it makes no sense to speak of the independence of the judiciary. Politicians must stop using this as a get-out clause to refuse to get to grips with judicial corruption because it is absolutely clear that fraud in the courts is commonplace.
In the UK following the recent riots the new Labour Government under Keir Starmer showed that they absolutely can politically motivate the courts to act when they want to. If they choose not to because the culprit is a judge and the victim is an innocent child and his or her distraught family, we can truly demolish the claim that there is no such thing as a two-tier justice system. The deciding factor in whether you can access justice or not is money and power.
Currently, the independence of the judiciary is seriously compromised and courts throughout the western world are politicised, top to bottom. Judges have lost the right to claim immunity, unlimited discretion and “light touch” oversight because they have abused the trust that entailed.
There ARE good judges out there. This would be a good time for them to speak out.
And perhaps, to be fair on the judges, we can also look at the lawyers who are basically white collar criminals, expert witnesses who are no more than snake oil salespeople, and the politicians who got us into this mess.
You can see the film in Croatian on YouTube here:
I will follow this post with more explorations of different aspects of corruption in the justice system, as this film opens up a Pandora’s box which is well worth rummaging through.
My focus as a campaigner is family law, but problems in the wider justice system impact family law, and if we don’t have an awareness of these problems we will not be able to solve them.
How do we fix family law, and fix it fast? With children’s lives at stake, incremental reform is not acceptable.
TRANSCRIPT
OPENING SCREEN
He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord. – Proverbs, 17:15
NARRATOR
The Republic of Croatia has a total of 68 courts, including 34 municipal courts, 15 county courts, 9 commercial courts, and four administrative courts. There is also a High Commercial Court, Administrative High Court, High Court of Misdemeanours, Criminal High Court, and the Supreme and Constitutional Court. The Croatian courts have 1,656 judges employed. Croatia has 40 judges per 100,000 inhabitants. Ireland has three of them, Denmark has six, France has ten, Italy has eleven, Germany has twenty four.
[The UK has approximately 3.1, Australia has 4-5, and the USA 10-11]
There are about 473,000 unresolved cases in all courts. Most of them are at municipal courts, 385,000. According to the State budget for 2022, 1.8 billion kuna has been secured for the Croatian judiciary, for salaries and other expenses. The monthly salary of a judge in the county courts ranges from 25,000 to 39,000 kuna [3,318-5176 EUR, bearing in mind the very different cost of living and average salary].
There is a very large number of courts and a very large number of judges, which is very difficult to justify, given the size of the Croatian population.
For several years, due to deviations in justice, according to numerous investigations, there is a great distrust of Croatian citizens in the justice institutions and the legal state.
NEWSPAPER HEADLINES
Why are people running away from Croatia? Because of religious primitivism, corruption and nepotism. Insert – Corruption is the most frequently cited reason
Exodus of Croats: Young people are running from all counties, but one is conclusively the worst
Land registry frightens foreign investors
This has resulted in the displacement of the most productive Croatian population abroad and the abandonment of foreign investment.
KRUNOSLAV OLUJIC – Lawyer, former President of the Supreme Court and former Chief Public Prosecutor:
The state of the justice system and the evident chaos that we unfortunately have and that we have witnessed over the last 20 or 30 years in Croatia, and which we would not have expected since we it is against all the proclamations, that is all founding acts from the first Croatian Constitution to date, and especially in the realisations of all of those [EU accession] negotiations and the tortuous path that Croatia had to travel to close a whole series of chapters, such as the chapter of justice, human rights and freedoms and so on, did not lead to the expected results, but the very opposite.
If that is the case, and if we ask whose interests this serves, then we can say with almost 100% certainty that this suits the governing political nomenclature, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) [political party], its governing structures, if you will the Presidents of the HDZ, first and foremost I am referring to the late President Tudjman, who is the father of “this state” of the Croatian justice system, and Ivo Sanader [currently serving a prison sentence], Tomislav Karamarko, and the current Prime Minister and President, Andrej Plenković.
MATE KNEZEVIC – Zagreb lawyer [has spoken out about family law, calling the State kidnap of children as worse than the Devshirme system under the Ottoman Empire]
We can see a process, where the judiciary has become a separate world, and a law unto itself. A kind of caste and a world that one is actually not allowed to criticize.
KRUNOSLAV OLUJIC
All this supports the hypothesis that we have no free and independent judiciary, but unfortunately very dependent, we have a judiciary which is a shattered spine and which, in a way, represents a closed caste system within these three powers. And this closed caste system to a significant extent listens to clear messages and signals directed to it from a fitting hill in the Republic of Croatia [the seat of Government].
The reasons for ineffectiveness and the distrust of citizens of the Republic of Croatia in the rule of law date back to the mid 1990s during the time of the transition of the justice system, which until then had functioned in accordance with Tito’s maxim: “judges do not need to stick to the law like a drunkard to the fence”. In the 1990s, Tito’s recommendation was replaced by Tudjman’s democratic state-building justice-system, which was primarily supposed to protect state interests, that is, the interests of the party in power, which was implied by the non-sanctioning of war and post-war transformational profiteers and tycoons.
The new judiciary was created by the judges who were chosen after a prior selection and loyalty check by a specially formed State Judicial Council, which was managed by people trusted by Tudjman: Ivic Pasalic and Ante Potrebica. At that time, the Council chose, nominated and appointed judges for life, and that is how it has remained to this day.
Purges of the judges in the 1990s
At the beginning of the 90s, a purge of members of the Croatian judiciary was carried out.
With the help of the State Judicial Council a purge of judges was carried out. This was discussed by the former candidate for President of the Supreme Court, university professor Zlata Đurđević, who says, there is no doubt that the current crisis in the judiciary is the result of the devastation of the judiciary in the 90s.
SAVO STRBAC – Lawyer and former judge at Zadar Municipal Court
Through the request to sign these statements of loyalty it was clear what the new Government wanted. That the judges sign a statement of loyalty to them, to the Government.
The judges do not bow to the loyalty of the government at the time, but to the people, to the Parliament.
We made a deposition, as far as I remember, to the President of the Parliament about the ceremonial oath, that we would judge according to their free judicial conviction, in accordance with the Constitution and other laws. Not to the President of the Government or the State.
It wasn’t just the Serbs that left. The good Croatians left. Say, I will mention Anto Nobilo from Zagreb. He was a Prosecutor.
KRUNOSLAV OLUJIC
In the 90s, bypassing the provisions of the Croatian Constitution, at a time when we were all affirming the rule of law, and the ideals of that kind of rule of law, the President of the Republic, Franjo Tudjman very often used to announce that all bodies of Government, including the judiciary, had the duty to carry out a single state policy.
President Tudjman himself determined a single state policy. But not as the President of the State, but as the President of the Croatian Democratic Union and the Presidency of the Croatian Democratic Union.
SAVO STRBAC
Those loyalty statements were everywhere. In all companies, state institutions and bodies. If you didn’t sign, you were fired.
KRUNOSLAV OLUJIC
In the person, character and work of Andrej Plenković, as the President of the Croatian Democratic Union, we are implementing the same, unified state policy, and not judging on the basis of the Constitution and the law. And with the difference that this time this unified state policy only does not affirm the pressure of the Croatian Democratic Union itself, that is, Andrej Plenković.
SLAVICA LUKIC – Journalist, Jutarnji list
I would say that politics really had a dominant influence on the justice system, especially when I say politics, then I mean the HDZ, the party that carried out the great purge of the judiciary in the 90s, which appointed the State Judicial Council (DSV), a body that nominated judges according to its own tastes, those were people who were close to the HDZ, and it is no secret that after that great purge the justice system actually was staffed with people who were favourable to the ruling party while many good judges, experienced judges were purged just because the DSV and the ruling party consider that they do not have the correct worldview or nationality, or whatever.
SAVO STRBAC
I did not sign that statement, which I explained by saying that I had once sworn my sacred oath and I would not do it again.
SULEJMAN TABAKOVIC – Lawyer
In Croatia the entire professional staff of the justice system has been destroyed. People who should not even have been entrusted with taking care of livestock came into certain positions. These are the people who have destroyed the entire system in Croatia which used to be outstanding. I can testify to this, I used to be the head of a legal department.
ZELJKO ROGIC – Former President of Zadar County Court (Whistleblower)
In fact, in an attempt to steal from the state through the well-known legalised theft, the Law on Privatisation and Transformation, it was said, if any legal proceedings were to be initiated, who would free us in the courts and who would take us out of prison?
And so a group was formed which was supposed to prevent those who would steal from Croatia going to prison or take them out of prison.
NARRATOR
Following the model of functioning of the State Judicial Council, the Council of Public Prosecutors was later formed, which in a similar way appointed Public Prosecutors. This symbiosis of politics and justice has been damaging the Croatian state and its citizens for a long time, and this was confirmed by the anthological statement of the former president of the Supreme Court and a member of the State Judicial Council, Milan Vuković, who repeated several times that Croats in a defensive war could not commit war crimes.
Because of all this, the question arises:
Is Croatia a legal State?
KRUNOSLAV OLUJIC
I think that the Republic of Croatia cannot be said to be a legal state for a single reason, above all because of the fact that the rule of law as one of the fundamental values of the Croatian constitutional order in the Republic of Croatia does not exist or function at all.
SULEJMAN TABAKOVIC
The institution exists, but the justice system as a totality, an institution according to the system, the law of the system of state administration, that does not exist as a totality.
Because when we talk about the judiciary, we must know that the justice system is also the judiciary. It is said that in every State we have the tripartite separation of powers. So the legislative, executive and judicial powers.
However, Croatia has five powers. There is the Constitutional Court, which meddles in all sorts of things and de facto destroys the justice system. And there is, therefore, the fifth, that was the fourth, while the fifth is Croatian National Bank, which also shows, with its elements, that it is a power that is destroying the citizens of the Republic of Croatia.
PROF. IVAN PADJEN – Retired lecturer in law
Even in the Soviet Union, 40 years ago, a lawyer, Maltser??, wrote a book, Law and Legislation. He asked, where is the law? Law is much, much broader than the legislation. People think they know law because they have read the legislation, they are wrong.
Law is the application of legislation. In some cases, and this is not only from the courts, but also in administrative practice, in business practice, some of it comes to the courts, some of it does not come to the courts. And then the influence of this practice on the legislation itself, on change, on its interpretation by the Supreme Courts, by the fact that the legislation is changing.
One judges by practice and not by legislation. It is inevitable. This is not some Croatian specialty or something that only exists in America. It has become so throughout Europe.
ZELJKO ROGIC
When we talk about Europe, and in this part of Europe, which is just becoming Europe, we are not a legal state.
The biggest shortcomings of the Croatian justice system
PROF. IVAN PADJEN
Secrecy, the most respected, influential Croatian lawyer, academician Jakša Barbić, said.
The main problem in the Croatian justice system is its staff.
I will try to quote him literally. He said, I can advise business people if they have a problem with German commercial law or German social law because those decisions of the German courts are available to me.
I cannot advise them about cases from commercial law or social law in Croatian courts, because the decisions of Croatian courts are not available.
NARRATOR
Croatian courts are characterised by:
· the duration of proceedings
· the arbitrary acts of judges
· abuse of power and authority
· the coupling of politics and justice
· nepotism
· refusal to void corrupt judgments
· irresponsibility and incompetence of judges
· inability to take criminal and disciplinary action against judges
· inconsistent judicial practice
· disrespect for the recommendations and directives of the European Union to the Croatian courts.
The courts do not use transcripts and audio recordings, although there is equipment purchased by the funds of the European Union that was never installed. Minutes are still dictated according to the will of the judge.
IVAN RESETAR – Spokesperson, Veronika Vere charity
Not respecting the Constitution, conventions and the law. Starting from the first instance judges, county court judges, judges of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court.
SIME SAVIC – Zagreb lawyer
We did not take care when we appointed judges who would be the judge, but we cared about who knows who and who is friendly with who, and in that way we staffed the justice system and got the situation as we have it.
A significant part of the judges cannot cope with the challenges of the court. And one part of the judges, unfortunately, as they would call them, are lazy in execution, and a part of the judges do their job well.
SULEJMAN TABAKOVIC
First of all, they are not competent. Second, morass, which is called the Croatian Parliament, and the people who sit in the Croatian Parliament, do not know what they are adopting.
Laws, uh, we can’t even criticise the judges too much. Because the laws that they are adopting are not feasible. They cannot be implemented. Impossible.
So, these laws that they are adopting, if we look at Parliament, they talk about all sorts of things but not the text of the law in which it says: why this or that article of the law is being amendment. Amendments are adopted without explanation. And they are supposed to say, Citizens, this is for your benefit for this or that reason, but these poor people don’t know. What are you going to do with these people from Most, all the political parties, SDP, HDZ. It’s terrifying.
Then you have a legislative body that doesn’t know its job, adopts the wrong laws, and procedural laws have been destroyed.
KRUNOSLAV OLUJIC
From the middle of the 1990s to this day when we implemented reforms, several times implemented reforms of an already reformed justice system which didn’t achieve anything, and in the end everything leads to a whole series of cosmetic changes to procedural laws, so the Criminal Procedures Act and the Civil Procedures Act, and also the Enforcement Procedures Act, while those same Acts, regardless of the content and norms, are implemented by the same judges who do not follow those changes, have not dealt with them and do not know how to implement them in court practice.
NARRATOR
Regardless of the large number of judges, judicial disputes in Croatia are among the longest in the Union, depending on the type of proceedings.
The average duration of a judicial dispute in civil court proceedings in Croatia is about two and a half years. Some cases last between 20, 30, and even more years.
[Newspaper headlines:
Statute of limitations threatens 25,000 cases
41% of judges haven’t touched a case for more than 6 months]
IVAN RESETAR
Our laws, generally speaking, are well constructed laws, but they are not applied adequately in practice.
It often happens that the law is written in a normal way but a judge makes a judgment in a completely different way, vaguely, and then justifies this with the fact that there is a second instance court, which will, if it was not a good decision, that they will change the decision. And what happens? What happens is that many of the judges cut a deal with the lawyers, and the cost of the proceedings mounts up due to activities in the case. The money is split.
DORIS KOSTA – Lawyer, Split
The provisions of the laws are absurd. I want to tell you, nothing works. So, during the investigation, you propose evidence. The state prosecutor decides to complete the investigation. The case file has 5,000 pages. He submits it to the investigating judge who by law has two days, 48 hours, to decide whether our proposal has grounds. And, as a rule, he cannot.
I was in The Hague [War Crimes Tribunal], you know how many we had 10 pages per hour, that was when we were asking how much we were working on the case. So ten pages in one hour. Which means that this judge, this case file. 5,000 pages. Even if he didn’t sleep, and he didn’t ask for overtime. So he couldn’t read it. But I will get an answer that our proposals are already established, with other evidence that he doesn’t mention it at all. That’s why we insist. And that is why the European Court says to explain decisions, because then it would not happen.
IVAN RESETAR
It is absurd that in the 90s we had a bigger population, and fewer court proceedings, and today we have an incalculable number of proceedings that are piling up and taking years, so more and more money, though lawyers and judges who benefit from that.
(In)competence of judges
PROF. IVAN PADJEN
In fact, in this way you have a vicious circle, in which the secrecy of the judiciary produces incapable lawyers, who, of course, when they become judges… what else can they do but cover up their own ignorance?
NARRATOR
Judges, apart from law, do not understand: economics, accounting, finance, banking, which results in the prolongation of court proceedings and in verdicts that depend on the questionable findings of expert witnesses.
VELIMIR BUJANEC – Editor and host of Bujica
The lawsuit is for defamation, but the guy is in America. Now, the judge, when will she reject it? In the end ST News announces that that guy died in a road traffic accident, and pictures of the accident… And the judge didn’t believe it. You know what we did then? A commemoration. The editorial team of Slobodni tjednik took that same photograph which was also in Burda or some magazine like that, framed in black, candles, we all dressed in black… Prayers, a priest… A commemoration! We buried the guy… who didn’t exist. And then we took that double-page spread (??) to the judge, Bozic took it to her, and that’s how I learned journalism.
KRUNOSLAV OLUJIC
In implementing these, I would always call them so-called sophisticated crimes which are coming up in other segments of certain financial, legal and other areas such as the financial system, complex economic system etc., they simply are not up to the task of handling those kinds of cases. That this is so is supported above all by the fact that this kind of case, which we are witnessing in recent times, but not just these but a whole range of other cases, go on for 10-15 or even 20 years.
This is a result of the fact that we have a judiciary that is exclusively selected according to the criterion of obedience, and the criterion of mediocrity, and unfortunately not the criteria of expertise, independence and being worthy of carrying out judicial duties, both as a judge and as a Public Prosecutor.
And this all bears testament to the fact that we are talking about, that simply such a Croatian judiciary, without a thorough system of training, is not up to the job at the current moment and is not in a state to handle these kinds of cases. And unfortunately, we all know the consequences, and we are dealing with these kinds of consequences almost on a daily basis.
DORIS KOSTA
We are coming across, to my dismay, judges that are not sufficiently informed, neither in the case law of the European Court, nor in any other kind of knowledge which is connected with the case at hand.
In Croatia we have the so-called Judicial Academy. I have to tell you that I have no idea what purpose it serves. This is, in my opinion, one more of these formal institutions which does not fulfil its purpose.
NARRATOR
[Newspaper headline: Croatian courts are tired and sick institutions]
An independent judiciary is concealing the arbitrariness of judges, which is often in confrontation with parties and lawyers, and results in the punishment of parties with fines of 5-10,000 kuna (665-1,330 EUR) for contempt of court if they insist on the lawful work of the judge and respect for the rules of procedure.
Judges are considered untouchable, and often use the formulation [inaudible/do not understand Mujasucaca?]??
Politics and the justice system
ZORAN MILANOVIC – former President of the Republic of Croatia
…said that politicians who had played in the judiciary did not end up well. Who was he thinking about? Vladimir Šeks? Who is saying that? What kind of behaviour is that?
NIKSA WAGNER – County Prosecutor, Split
They all at that time, which was about 10, 15 years ago, claimed that Vladimir Šeks was the most powerful lawyer, in the most powerful position in the Republic of Croatia, the most powerful channel for appointments in the courts. I was not successful, so I cannot confirm this, but I know from the grapevine that he, in a way, was the main person responsible for appointments in the courts, while Mladen Bajić was the main channel for appointments in the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
NARRATOR
Politics evaluated the judiciary as too an important segment of power to grant complete autonomy. That was shown in the scandal “How did Ankica Tudjman get 210,00 German Marks in savings?”, when Smiljko Sokol, then a judge at the Constitutional Court, trying to justify the unregistered wealth of the Tudjmans, made a scandalous statement: “Money is not an asset”.
These cases show that Croatian courts never moved away or freed themselves from politics, while other financial and interest lobbies formed with a powerful influence on judges and the courts.
In disputes between citizens and the State there is an unofficial political recommendation aimed at judges not to make judgments that would result in significant damage to the Republic of Croatia and the State budget.
Many judges act in line with this recommendation.
SLAVICA LUKIC
Groups within the justice system aligned with certain interest groups have more influence on the judiciary than politics itself.
Politics certainly still has a certain influence but I would say that these other influences, of financial centres of power, various interest groups, are stronger than political influence.
KRUNOSLAV OLUJIC
Since, instead of a responsible, independent Croatian judiciary we have a partisan, HDZ-dominated judiciary, I think it is not possible to speak of any kind of independence of the judicial powers, but that all the key decisions are made on one hill, I am thinking of St Mark’s Square, where the current Prime Minister and President of the Croatian Democratic Union is sitting.
Not only according to the perception of the Croatian public, but in general terms in Europe and in the world, that the Croatian judicial power is not perceived as independent, but as an extended hand of the executive power, and we know who in Croatia carries the executive power.
Legal tariffs
GORDANA SPRAJC – Activist
Legal tariffs are a gross violation of the constitutional rights of citizens. Because those who have no money cannot reach a fair trial.
NARRATOR
In Croatia, there are 523 law firms that employ around 5,100 lawyers.
In 1994, the Attorneys Act was introduced, which allowed the Croatian Bar Association to determine the level and method of handling legal tariffs.
This means that the Attorneys Act conferred upon an interest group, a guild, legislative powers.
The tycoon legal lobby abused this authority by arbitrarily imposing legal tariffs on Croatian citizens, which was unprecedented in our judicial history. Astronomical tariffs have made it possible for preferred lawyers to get rich quickly, and Croatian citizens have become victims of legalised theft overnight.
We have compared the legal tariffs and the costs of court proceedings in Croatia and Germany on the basis of four submissions and ten hearings in relation to the value of the dispute. According to this comparison, it is clear that Croatian legal fees are seven times higher than German ones.
GORDANA SPRAJC
Legal tariffs can be considered small and large.
They are very small for high value cases, where the other party, who buys your case and your judge, actually can buy your lawyer, with your money.
Small citizens who are in court because of an enforcement, TV licence, water company bill, for them this deprives them of their constitutional right to access the court, because they cannot afford a lawyer.
Nepotism in the courts
SLAVICA LUKIC
Nepotism exists in the Croatian courts, we have not-so-isolated cases where children of established judges appointed to the courts and become judges. I would say that this in itself is not a problem if the children, spouses of established judges really deserve to be appointed judges due to their own quality.
DR. SIME SAVIC
The problem of nepotism, as you call it, is not only present in the judiciary. It is present in all parts of society, and has not bypassed the justice system. It happens, when the parents are judges, then the children are judges, and so on, in a circle.
We have to appoint as judges the best and highest quality people, because they solve the problems of the citizens. And those people should be apponted, and not who knows whom.
ZELJKO ROGIC
Nepotism is permanent corruption. If they network well, I don’t want to judge your cousin’s case, but you do mine, and I’ll do yours.
And then there are external influences, and who has money in that county, in that area, and then let’s split that.
NARRATOR
For an illustration of nepotism, we present a few examples from practice.
· The son of Djuro Sese is a judge at the Commercial Court in Zagreb.
· The daughter of Ana Lovrin is a judge at the Municipal Court in Zadar.
· The lawyer Maria Turudic is the sister of Ivan Turudic, County Court judge.
· The son of Oliver Mittermeier works at the Municipal Criminal Court in Zagreb.
· The daughter of Vladimir Seks is the President of the Municipal Court in Osijek.
· The daughter of Mate Granic is a judge in the Municipal Court in Zagreb.
ZELJKO ROGIC
They will not risk their health.
They will be put in a position where they don’t have to work, where they are not bossed around, and where they will jump in and help when needed by those for whom they were sent there.
SLAVICA LUKIC
I was personally dealing with the case of the promotion of the son of the former President of the Supreme Court Djuro Sessa. This was a young man who was unable to pass civil procedural law at the Zagreb Law Faculty. It was not the only case, there were several other cases. After that he transferred to the Law Faculty in Split. There he was able to pass that exam with no problems. After that he spent a short time as an advisor at the Municipal Civil Court in Split where his father for many years, and then he became a senior advisor at the County Court at the time that his father was President of the Supreme Court, only to be selected as a judge at the Commercial Court.
The strangest step is that in passing the exam at the Judicial Academy, because advisors cannot become judges if they do not pass the exam, he scored the maximum possible number of points in civil procedural law, the very subject he had such a difficult time with as a student.
He scored 100 points, which is, of course, possible if a person has advanced so much in the and is so interested in a subject that once gave him a headache, but it is interesting that the President of the Board of the Judicial Academy, at the time, was his father, Djuro Sessa, who, as the President of the Supreme Court was also the head of the Academy of Justice.
What is very strange in the whole story from a journalist’s point of view was that the Academy of Justice, on the basis of a series of my repeated requests did not want to deliver the results of the tests to me. These are written tests. Um, they were visible only when the whole process of his selection was over.
KRUNOSLAV OLUJIC
They do not bring in personnel who come from outside, who are trained, but are mainly reproduced from their own ranks. This means that the judges of lowest courts in the Croatian justice system are filled with the children of judges of the higher courts, and even the highest court, including the former President of the Supreme Court, and the highest judicial officials in the Republic of Croatia.
SLAVICA LUKIC
The daughter of Ana Lovrin, where you have that case where her daughter was promoted, a member of the State Judicial Council at the time stated that it was a family thing or whatever, and that excellent judges come from that family.
Judicial mafia and corruption in the courts
ZORAN MILANOVIC
It is a fact that those who made some kind of contribution in the war, because of the Croatian judicial mafia, mafia, first ran to a foreign country instead of being judged here.
ZELJKO ROGIC
In the Croatian justice system there are more corrupt judges than honest ones.
DRAGO RASPUDIC – President of the Veronika Vere charity
I will call out all judges who adopt genocidal, criminal judgments.
NARRATOR
Final and binding judgments against judges and numerous scandals which have forced judges out of their positions are evidence of corruption in the Croatian courts. Such as Split judge Robert Pesutic, who was at the end of 2017 sentenced to 3 ½ years of prison for accepting bribes.
Corrupt judge Pesutic managed to delay the beginning of his sentence by a year and a half, but after his release he continued to receive half of his salary as a judge.
Judge Maja Supe was relieved of her duties after financial scandals.
Corruption in the judiciary was also reported by the security agency SOA, which a few years ago published in the media information about 20 judges who pose a threat to national security.
SLAVICA LUKIC
I would say that the biggest absurdity of the judiciary is actually the investigations by USKOK [the Office for Anti-Corruption and Organised Crime] that are conducted against judges, including high ranking judges.
Let’s not forget that we currently have, I think, five judges under investigation by USKOK [the Croatian office for anti-corruption and organised crime]. Two are judges of the Commercial Court in Zagreb. Judge Malenica, against whom an investigation was opened against because of abuse of judicial power in bankruptcy proceedings in 2017. And judge Kovačić, Mihajlo Kovačić, against whom an investigation was opened last year, if I’m not mistaken, also because of abuse of power in bankruptcy proceedings.
Then we have three judges of the County Court in Osijek who were shown up by Zdravko Mamic, after whose information the police started to investigate his allegations. And three judges of the County Court in Osijek ended up under investigation by USKOK, but what is most absurd is that all three were USKOK judges. So, those were judges who were supposed to go through security checks.
IVAN RESETAR
While the Land Registry was still located here in the Municipal Court in Zagreb, that he literally had to come to court as a party who was a judge, who if he wanted to get something done had to hand over money in an envelope as if he came to the butchers to buy a kilogram of meat.
DORIS KOSTA
I suggested to my colleagues, because there were several of us, that when I come to court, because they do not respect the defence, I would say everything I had to say with my back turned. So, I would turn my back to the court and the prosecution. They said, have you gone mad? I said, no. And I will show my disobedience.
Which someone will write down and they will ask me why I am doing that. You are punishing me, and why would you punish me? That is discrimination, my back is not of less value than my front part. On the other hand, where does it say in the rules that I have to stand facing the court. Of course, they didn’t want to do this, and since I was already so problematic for the court, I gave up. You understand. I would do it gladly. Do you have a tassel, for example, a pigtail?
The case of Zdravko Mamic
ZDRAVO MAMIC
You have the judge Kmesic who confirmed my second indictment, who people witnessed, who gave him money which I gave them to give him.
After the public statement by Zdravko Mamic in which he alleged that Croatian judges were accepting bribes, the media noted a statement by the former head of the Supreme Court Djure Sessa, who said that he did not intend to sue Mamic for defamation and had no intention to go through a lie detector. In so doing, he confirmed Mamic’s allegations.
KRUNOSLAV OLUJIC
We all know in Croatia who Zdravko Mamic is, where he worked, first of all in sport, but on the other hand, we also know that Mr. Mamic opened all the doors in the Republic of Croatia, from the President’s office, I don’t know, to the Presidency of the Croatian Democratic Union, all the fundamental institutions and so on.
Personally, I am even inclined to believe Mr. Mamic, that he visited the then President of the Supreme Court, regardless of how that former President of the Supreme Court tried to deny it, all of that viewed through the optics that the former President of the Republic of Croatia personally suggested as President of the Supreme Court that very same person, and the relations between Zdravko Mamic and the former President of the Republic of Croatia are known.
DRAGO RASPUDIC
Mate Matic, who lawyers respect, said that Zdravo Mamic was not guilty according to this judgment.
KRUNOSLAV OLUJIC
Unfortunately, Mr Mamic will be noted in the Croatian judicial powers and Croatian political history as the greatest reformer of Croatian judicial power, which was received with considerable sympathy and a certain reserve and accepted and followed, but as people who understand the state of the Croatian judiciary could recognise and knew how to value, unfortunately it turned out that that was maybe the greatest truth. That one person, regardless what we think about that person, caused to such a tectonic fault in the Croatian judicial powers.
ZELJKO ROGIC
I do not believe that there is a competition in this discipline. In the sense that they will boast to each other that they have taken more. I consider, first of all, that they are hiding, hiding what they are taking, especially since they are larger sums and smaller sums. All this is hidden, all this is happening somewhere in the afternoon, in restaurants, private homes, and other places where they think that no one will see them together.
NARRATOR
Informally, in Croatian courts there are court tariffs for judgments. They range from 5 to 10,000 euros in municipal courts, 100,000 euros in county and commercial courts, and around a million euros at the Constitutional Court. The scandals in which Croatian judges have found themselves, statements and other evidence suggest that this claim is not groundless.
DJURDJICA BEDIC – former secretary at the Municipal Public Prosecutor’s Office in Zagreb
A defendant came to me in confidence because they knew where I worked had found out which judges accepted bribes at the Municipal Court. Which judges at the County Court accepted bribes, but unfortunately found out about a Deputy from the Municipal Public Prosecutor’s Office in Zagreb. I was totally shocked.
ZELJKO ROGIC
I do not see more and less corrupt areas in Croatia. We Croats are more or less similar, whether in Slavonia, Istria, Dubrovnik or up in Zagorje or in Dalmatia.
Citizens against the State – Or are judgments “In the name of the people” or “In the name of the State”?
NARRATOR:
William Robert Kohorst, Ambassador to Croatia, decided to break diplomatic convention in 2019 and speak out about the judiciary as the biggest problem in Croatia, He said, among other things:
“When the rich and powerful are not answerable in court, people doubt in justice. That is why entrepreneurs do not want to invest in Croatia.”
He added that the lengthy court proceedings in Croatia often go in favour of criminals.
SAVO STRBAC
When they adopt judgments in the name of the people, it is much more sympathetic to me than this “in the name of the state”, whatever the state is called.
DORIS KOSTA
Louis XIV said the “I am the State”. This is the only way I can explain a judgment “in the name of the Republic of Croatia” and it is in stark contrast to a judgment “in the name of the people”. And I think that our judgments are not in the name of the people.
For someone who did not work and who did not adopt for 15, 16 years those judgments “in the name of the people”, maybe that that does not mean the same as it does to me.
Maybe I’m subjectively connected with that type of judgment in the name of the people.
NARRATOR
Despite internal and external pressure, the Croatian government does not want to change anything in the judiciary, which is why the Croatian citizens and the Republic of Croatia are no longer on the same side.
That is why the question is open. Do the courts adopt judgments in the name of the people or in the name of the Republic of Croatia, which is represented by the party in power?
Who and what do the State Prosecutor and USKOK serve?
DR. SIME SAVIC
As concerns the Public Prosecutor’s Office, since he took over the office around 2003, my colleague Mladen Bajić was the alpha and omega of all the recruitment decisions, especially us, we were in Split, right?
Because of many of his acquaintances with people in Split, he became involved in almost every job vacancy. My disagreements with him began with his recruiting decisions. He got involved literally in the employment of a cleaner and a handyman. I didn’t even think that as the Municipal Public Prosecutor I should deal with it.
In fact, there was a situation when I chose, in accordance with the law on the rights of Croatian veterans, a veteran for the position of handyman. Then he rang me personally, as the Municipal Public Prosecutor, on the phone and literally yelled at me because we did not give his friend the job. His friend was not a veteran, so he couldn’t have priority.
NARRATOR
1,854 people are employed in all Public Prosecutor offices. Together, USKOK [The Office for Anti Corruption and Organised Crime] and all Public Prosecutor offices spend 417 million Kuna of Croatian taxpayers annually. The monthly salary of the Chief State Prosecutor Zlata Hrvoje Sipek is about 44,000 kuna. And the head of USKOK, Vanja Marusic, 38,000 kuna.
DR. SIME SAVIC
Many colleagues in the Public Prosecutor’s Office, especially in leadership functions, are somehow connected to Mladen Bajic, or directly or through recommendations, and I can confirm that with full responsibility, because without his consent, it has not been possible to get to any leadership position for years.
During those three mandates, almost 20 years of influence on the Public Prosecutor’s Office, that service is still functioning as his private office, and the largest number of people, especially in the leadership structure, are absolutely his choice, his cadre.
Lawlessness at the Constitutional Court
DORIS KOSTA
So, the Constitutional Court, which should be the court of the people, is the Constitutional Court of the Government.
NARRATOR
The Constitutional Court is increasingly only the long arm of politics, the party in power and influential lobbies, and the scandals have not bypassed this court either.
Even the former President of the Constitutional Court, Jasna Omejec, lost a case, where it was proven that she was unlawfully paid herself four salaries after the end of her mandate at the Constitutional Court. Thus, she damaged the state by about 100,000 kuna.
We should also mention the affair with Davorin Mlakar, who was brought in by the Austrian police several times and questioned on suspicion of accepting bribes. After all that, he became a judge of the Constitutional Court. Former judge of the Constitutional Court, Ivan Matija, is suspected of falsifying his diploma.
Some members of the Constitutional Court have never been judges.
KRUNOSLAV OLUJIC
Effectively, the constitutional position of the Supreme Court as the highest court in the state was brought into question, which alongside the existence of the Constitutional Court, creates the perception in the Croatian public that the Supreme Court is not the highest court in the country while, unfortunately, the Constitutional Court is only truly a court in name, and not by its purview at all.
It would be more appropriate to call it the Constitutional Council, the State Council or something else, or some other name.
Very often, the Constitutional Court, and the President of the Constitutional Court are mistakenly perceived as the highest court in the country, and the President of the Constitutional Court as the head of the judicial powers, which is not the case, because that is the President of the Supreme Court, as the highest court in the country.
Accountability and sanctions for judges
Individuals and associations often submit criminal and disciplinary complaints against corrupt judges, which are automatically rejected, because judges are unaccountable.
According to current practice, of about 5,500 disciplinary complaints against judges, Presidents of the courts send a maximum of seven of them, or 0.1 percent, to the State Judicial Council.
Judgments are often made on the basis of fraud, but when this fraud is proven, the verdict does not change and becomes final and binding.
DORIS KOSTA
Not one judge in Croatia, except for the ones we have now in the Mamic case… has not been held accountable. And this is also a bribe because we do not have for their negligent way of working
According to the Courts Act, the Republic of Croatia is responsible for the damages that judges cause to parties through their illegal or incorrect work while carrying out their judicial duties.
However, if an arbitrary interpretation of the law and arbitrary actions of the judge, but
it is a matter of the judge’s mistake, there is no responsibility of the judge or State for incorrect judgments.
GORDANA SPRAJC
When judges make mistakes in the case, they do not do it out of ignorance. They do it either because they are corrupt, or they receive money, or they are rewarded with jobs, or with some other privileges that cannot be openly noticed.
Accordingly, judges should be sanctioned much more strictly than ordinary citizens when they violate the law. Judges have the State Judicial Council, which is one of the most corrupt institutions. So, that is a place where judges judge judges.
Case law, the European Courts and European Directives
NARRATOR
Since the ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights, from 1997 to 2022 17,511 requests have been submitted to the European Court for Human Rights against the Republic of Croatia, of which 441 are still being resolved.
Up to now, 380 judgments have been made in which one violation of the Convention by the Republic of Croatia has been established. Thus, the success rate of claims to the Court in Strasbourg is 0.2%.
The fact is that Croatian judges are not bound by Croatian case law or final and binding judgments in similar cases in the European courts.
There are frequent complaints by parties that at the Court in Strasbourg there are Croatian judges who select the appeals and reject them en masse as without grounds.
The Croatian courts often do not implement judgments of the higher instance courts but find a way to dodge them.
SULEJMAN TABAKOVIC
In December 2020 the Court in Strasbourg made a judgment which overturned the de facto and de jure robbery of 12 banks and 13 savings banks in the Republic of Croatia, in which was alleged that… so now to finish our conversation… So it said that the Constitutional Court, the Administrative Court, the Supreme Court, all the courts in the Republic of Croatia, Parliament and the law were the most responsible for it. And they made the judgment. Croatia appealed it after three months and got such a slap in the face, I have never seen it in my life.
The Court in Strasbourg wrote that a person seeking the protection of their rights against the Republic of Croatia, when you win a case, you have the right to collect the money from the European Union at the Ministry of Finance, it gave numbers you can call, so that you can be paid, in Croatia they would try to delay it.
However, there exists a regulation of the European Union where it is sent to the European Bank, so a form is filled out and the European Bank takes care of the Croatian signature and all the money.
GORDANA SPRAJC
I believe that the Croatian judiciary will begin to heal faster than a sick person with the best antibiotics if accountability is introduced.
NARRATOR
The state of the judiciary can be corrected and changed only with the implementation of accountability for judges. This includes the responsibility of the judge to the parties in the proceedings, to the taxpayers, responsibility to deadlines, to the recommendations of the European Union and case law, to the laws and the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, and, above all, responsibility to elementary logic and common sense.
GORDANA SPRAJC
Responsibility must be introduced in such a way that we, the citizens, elect the Director of Public Prosecutions. So, when there are elections for the President of the State, for the same cost, using the same paper, we can nominate candidates for the Chief State Prosecutor.
When we, the citizens, elect by name the Director of Public Prosecutions, if that were not on the basis of a wink that [Andrej] Plenković gives to a person who is completely incapable, then we would introduce the rule of law, and then Croatia would be a happy country, in which content people live.
DORIS KOSTA
We should put the right people in the right place. Politics should be completely out of that. Not expedient people, but those who are truly capable. And the court should finally see, Ministry of Justice should really, for the court, introduce impartiality. That they judge in the name of the people, so that, regardless of the fact that they have a different body, and here I am thinking, first of all on the Public Prosecutor.
ZELJKO ROGIC
People in England and Germany become judges when they are at least 45, 50 years old, because life experience is number one.
And then you look at the entire life of that judge, whether he was in corruption circles, as a detective, as a lawyer, I don’t know, somewhere in some institute. And did that person live honestly and morally. And as such deserves this kind of important duty. And people between the ages of 45 and 60 should work as judges and then leave, without the possibility of sending their sons or daughters.
NARRATOR
Changes are necessary to restore trust among citizens in the judiciary and the rule of law, and in order to avoid real danger that citizens begin to take the law into their own hands.
“When injustice becomes the law, resistance becomes duty.”
– Thomas Jefferson
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