Vuk TesijaZagrebBIRNFebruary 15, 202315:18Croatian Journalists’ Association condemns Prime Minister’s planned changes to the Criminal Procedure Code as ‘a serious threat to free journalism’.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic. Photo: Government of Republic of Croatia
A Croatian media union has criticised moves by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic to change the criminal procedure code [ZKP] and the criminal code [KZ] as dangerous for media freedom.
“We will change the ZKP and KZ. Situations where things from our files go out in an uncontrolled, deliberate, political, selected and arranged manner and cause political problems will not happen again,” Plenkovic said on Monday.
He said the Ministry of Justice and Administration had formed a working group for the Law on Criminal Procedure with the task of fixing it.
He spoke after last month text messages between two former state officials and a member of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, were published. The two are now under investigation for corruption.
Former State Secretary in the then Ministry of Administration Josipa Rimac, and the former Minister of Regional Development and EU Funds, Gabrijela Zalac, exchanged messages in which a person named only as “A.P.” was mentioned. They are the Prime Minister’s own initials. The messages did not directly accuse the Prime Minister of anything, however.
The Croatian Journalists’ Association, HND, criticised the proposed changes as a threat to the media.
“We consider the amendments to the law announced by the Prime Minister a serious threat to free journalism and the right of journalists to freedom of reporting and access to information guaranteed by the Constitution,” a letter to the Ombudsman signed by HND chairman Hrvoje Zovko said.
Zovko told BIRN that the European Federation of Journalists, the World Federation of Journalists, and the European Center for Freedom of the Media had all been informed.
“We will send a letter to our parliamentary representatives, address the government again and inform the President’s office and the European Commission. From the first day of his mandate, the Prime Minister has had an ambition to edit the Croatian media. We will fight against it by all legitimate means,” Zovko said.
“I assume that the idea is to declare the investigation [into the two former state officials] secret, by amending the Criminal Procedure Act. I’m afraid that won’t pass,” Ljubo Pavasović-Viskovic, a lawyer from Zagreb, told BIRN.
Pavasovic noted that ten years ago, when Croatia joined the EU, its law system also changed. “This was a consequence of adapting the law of the European Union. At that time, we agreed that the criminal procedure is public and that the public is one of the guarantors of the fairness of that procedure, so I think that there will be no return to the old ways,” Pavasovic said.,
He added that the government was clearly trying to prevent embarrassing information from appearing in the media.
Source link: balkaninsight.com
