President Ivo Josipovic described on Friday as extremely harmful a law adopted today to invalidate some legal acts of the former Yugoslav army, the former Yugoslavia, and Serbia which relate to the 1991-95 war in Croatia, saying he would ask the Constitutional Court to assess if it complied with the constitution.
"The law is extremely harmful, as it deprives Croatian war veterans of the right to an efficient defence through the legal aid of Croatian bodies," Josipovic told the press, adding that the law was also harmful as, by closing the door to the cooperation in which unfounded indictments were dismissed, it exposed an indeterminate number of Croatian citizens to the possibility of being arrested abroad.
Josipovic said that politically, the law was extremely harmful for Croatia as the international community had already said it was not good. The international community thinks the law "brings into question our commitment to the prosecution of war crimes," he added.
Josipovic said the law would stop the existing international cooperation which had already resulted in a number of trials in Serbia against people who had committed war crimes in Croatia.
Josipovic said he considered the law unconstitutional. "The law denies citizens the right to a fair trial, to state their defence," he said, adding that the law gave the justice ministry new powers, although it was not passed by a parliamentary majority.
He said that although parliament had a quorum, the law was not passed by a required majority.
The president also wondered if the law was in contravention of treaties signed by Croatia. "Croatian citizens will now feel insecure, especially when travelling abroad," he said, urging war veterans to seek protection from the MPs who voted for this "harmful and unconstitutional law."
Josipovic went on to say that stripping opposition MP Zeljko Jovanovic of immunity today was not a good decision, as it would bring "quite an imbalance into politics."
"I can't recall (such) a precedent, because Jovanovic's statements, which someone may or may not like, are not a hate crime," Josipovic said, adding that the legislator meant something else, other than political parties' bickering in or out of parliament, when defining hate crime in the penal code.
The decision will raise the question of the equal treatment of MPs and limit their freedom to fight for their views, even by using harsh language, Josipovic said. "This is a novelty made at the same time when another MP (Petar Mlinaric) was given immunity from prosecution for a similar or the same crime."
