The ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) on Tuesday dismissed the Social Democratic Party's (SDP) proposal to establish labour and social courts as a pointless politically-motivated move, recalling that while the SDP had been in power it was opposed to such special courts.
HDZ parliamentarian Boris Kunst told a news conference in Zagreb that the motion which the SDP sent into parliamentary procedure was an act of manipulating citizens and was aimed only at securing more votes for the next parliamentary election.
Kunst said that while SDP parliamentarian Ingrid Anticevic Marinovic was Justice Minister in 2003, courts were swamped with over 220,000 labour-related lawsuits with many of them referring to breaches of regulations from collective agreements and nonpayment of children's allowances and Christmas bonuses.
He said that such cases cost the state budget over HRK 4.5 billion, and accused Anticevic Marinovic of having been against specialised labour courts while she had served in the government.
Ana Lovrin of the HDZ added that her party was in favour of establishing labour-related departments within the existing courts rather than setting up separate courts which would be contrary to efforts to rationalise the network of courts.
HDZ parliamentarians also dismissed as inaccurate a report saying that 70,000 Croatians were working without being paid.
