Saša Đujić: From the beginning, the HDZ did not want to elect either the president of the Supreme Court or the constitutional judges

It is incredible to me, the same, that they are now calling on the President of the Committee for the Judiciary, Nikola Grmoja (Most), to convene a session so that they can finally declare themselves about the candidates for the Supreme Court, and last week was the seventh time that they removed that item from the agenda and did not want to declare it. He also reminded that this is the third attempt to elect the president of the Supreme Court, given that this position has been vacant for more than a year, and that “HDZ is obstructing the third process and because of them we do not have a president of the Supreme Court”.

“We say all the time that we do not want to merge the two election processes and we ask that they unblock the process of electing the Supreme Court chief. After that, we will talk about constitutional judges and we do not agree to the ‘two plus one’ formula. There is no ‘we two, you one’, but we are looking for consensus around the three best candidates who are selected according to the criteria of expertise, integrity and independent of their political and ideological beliefs to protect the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia and the interests of citizens”, he pointed out. He noted that they have been asking for this from the beginning and that they are ready to discuss it when the HDZ unblocks the process of electing the head of the Supreme Court.

But, he notes, they seem ready to talk, and then again with the model “these are our two, take it or leave it, accept it, and if you don’t accept it, we won’t play with you anymore”. They are again setting ultimatums and blackmail, and accusing us, he added.

He replied to the HDZ that it was not true that the test did not want to declare about the candidates, but they agreed to protect the integrity of the candidates, and he said that they would not publicly throw out names and that what the HDZ was doing was unacceptable to them.

He confirmed the allegations of HDZ’s Ivan Malenica that the two discussed several names, but denied that they had narrowed the list down to four candidates. He also stated that the opposition has no objections to the two candidates proposed by the HDZ, they do not veto them, nor do they think they are unprofessional, but, he emphasized, “in order to discuss the names, the ruling party must come to the session of the Committee for the Judiciary for the eighth time, in the third process in more than a year, and express their opinions on the proposals for Supreme Court”.

We do not condition that the president of the Supreme Court be elected, but that the election process be unblocked and finally launched, he said. “We are asking them to come to the session for the eighth time, unblock the process, and after that we are ready to sit down and talk about the seven or eight names that Malenica and I identified as candidates who could be acceptable to both sides”, said Đujić.

He also asserted that the actions of Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovi and Malenica, who appeared in front of the media twice yesterday and said that they agreed on something that they did not, reminded him of the Trump administration. Trump publishes tweets every ten minutes, denies himself, lies about something, then we have a truce and then we don’t have a truce, that’s how the HDZ behaves, they don’t even know what they’re doing, he emphasized.

“Once again, we call on the HDZ, because the first step is for them to come to an agreement with themselves and say what they want and in which direction they are going. However, we in the SDP, Možemo! and the rest of the left opposition will not agree to ultimatums, blackmail, pressure, degrading the integrity of the candidates, and after the process for the Supreme Court is unblocked, we are ready to discuss seven or eight candidates”, he appealed. Trump would be ashamed of what the HDZ is doing, he added.

He also assessed that his position yesterday that one candidate should be proposed by the ruling party, another should be approved, and the third should be agreed upon, with the names presented by the prime minister yesterday because, he repeated, they do not agree to the 2:1 election model in favor of the ruling majority.

“From the beginning, the HDZ did not want to elect either the president of the Supreme Court or the constitutional judges and now they are coming out with some quasi-solution that is ridiculous because they are calling Grmoja to call a session to which they have not come seven times and are demanding the election of constitutional judges in a ratio of 2:1. The whole time they have not moved even a millimeter from the position that blocked us”, believes Đujić. He added that the HDZ plays some kind of show for the public all the time and wants to accuse the opposition of not being elected to those two judicial institutions.

He is of the opinion that it is still possibleć agreement until the vote, although, he emphasizes, “since yesterday and this morning, after the statements from the HDZ, the chances have drastically decreased”.