SDP Files 1st Constitutional Suit Against Cabinet

The biggest Croatian oppositional party believes the law which enables the government to reorganise the budget violates the Constitution.

ZAGREB, CROATIA – The Social Democratic Party (SDP) will be filing their first of several Constitutional lawsuits against the Croatian government, as announced. According to Marija Lugaric, the SDP wants to warn that the government is ignoring the Constitution.

- The Croatian Parliament has passed the budget in March, we adopted the rebalance in July, while then, the government reached five decisions on its own and redistributed over 2.5 billion kuna, which is 2 percent of the budget. For instance, the funds for the Parliament were reduced by 7 million kuna (approximately 958,900 euros), while funds for the cabinet were increased by 5 million kuna, or a 4-million kuna plan was granted in the Parliament to equip school libraries, while the government reduced to literally zero kuna – Lugaric pointed out, continuing:

- It is inadmissible for the government to change figures in the budget on its own, especially during the crisis.

Gvozden Flego and Josip Leko also took part in the SDP press conference, while they presented the request for assessing correspondence with provisions of Article 7, item 1 and 2 of the Law on executing Croatian national budget for 2009, which reads:

“Provision of article 7 of the Law on executing Croatian national budget gives authorisation to the Croatian government to redistribute public funds of the State budget without the Parliament making decision and its knowledge… These provisions give authorities to the government to change the will and policies of the Croatian Parliament”.

- This document is the legal expression of the political problem. In stead of empowering democratic standards of Croatia, with this sort of behaviour, practice and the government insisting, the Parliament becomes the protector of the cabinet and not a place where the interests of the people are democratically harmonised – Josip Leko said.

 - The Parliament is a place that represents the will of the people, while the government is not. I hope our request for the assessment of constitutionality will have the same priority as the request of a member of the Constitutional Court –