Police Head Is Politicising Police Department

What kind of process is it when the police and court are working together, Professor Josipovic asked in the case of Niksa Klecak’s arrest.

ZAGREB, CROATIA – During the arrest of the young Niksa Klecak for organising a group on Facebook with a photo montage of Prime Minister Ivo Sanader in a Nazi uniform, the police did not act in accordance with the law. But this is not the first time that the police consulted the court of misdemeanours in cases, attorney Veljko Miljevic said. He claims this is regular practice and that this is being done in much more extreme cases. But Miljevic explained that by doing so, the police are not violating the law on proceedings, but that they also did not have any legal foundation to do so.

A professor at the Faculty of Law, Ivo Josipovic, says it is impermissible for the police to have asked for an opinion of a misdemeanours judge before issuing a search warrant.

- Krunoslav Borovec, the head of the Police Directorate’s Office, confirmed himself on television that before issuing the search warrant they consulted the State Prosecution in Dubrovnik and the Court of Misdemeanours. The problem is that the police is the prosecuting side in the procedure, the accused is the other party and the judge should be unbiased. So I ask what kid of process is this in which the police and court are working together – Professor Josipovic said.

State Prosecution as protection 

According to him, the police should independently decide whether to initiate proceedings and the Court of Misdemeanours should not become involved in the structure of the process. Attorney Rajko Mlinaric agreed with this. He said it was absolutely unacceptable that the Court of Misdemeanours advised the police in which the police are one of the parties in the process.

- The police have the right to ask whoever and whatever they want, including the court. But in this case the court made the mistake for giving its opinion because parties should be equal before the court. From my experience as a prosecutor, I can tell you that the police will seek advice from the State Prosecution only when they are not certain in what they are doing, but they cannot ask for advice from the court officially – Mlinaric said and added that by admitting to having asked for advice, the police leaders tried to protect themselves, that is, reduce their responsibility in case of possible mistakes.

Attorney Miljevic said he completely agreed with Professor Josipovic from the view point of a law professor, but he stressed that the police had not violated the legal process when they asked for the legal opinion of the Court of Misdemeanours before the search.

- There is no violation of law here because such action by police cannot be qualified as any violation of the legal process. However, there is also no legal foundation for this – Miljevic said and stressed that the police did this every day in much more extreme cases.

Police director contradicted himself 

But attorney Mlinaric refuted his claims, saying that a judge can unofficially advise the police over coffee, but that such a type of conversation should not be official. He said he was certain that Miljevic, as all attorneys, as a defence attorney, would fight to prove the illegal action by the Court of Misdemeanours.

Also, Mlinaric said, the Klecak case was contradictory to everything police director Faber announced after he was appointed for the position.

- With his statements in the media, Faber definitely placed himself in the function of one side and did the opposite of what he had announced after he was appointed as police director – Mlinaric said.