The acting HRT director-general Josip Popovac has requested the commission to state its position on Stankovic's behaviour on the show when he asked Pilsel to pretend to be Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor and answer his questions.

The commission has established that in the programme Stankovic primarily focused on human rights and Croatia's human rights record in the 1990s through the prism of the case of the Drobac family.

A source at the HRT told Hina on Friday that the commission found that over the past six years Stankovic had tried to directly contact Jadranka Kosor but in vain, and therefore, he had the right to raise the question on how she acquired her tenancy rights over the flat in which the Drobac family had lived before her.

Raising this issue, he did not question the legality, but he had the right to insist on the morality of the act and to express his judgement about it and about political privileges and human rights, according to the commission.

The commission also concluded that by stating "let's imagine" in his interview with Pilsel, Stankovic made it clear that TV viewers were watching a fiction and not the reality, making a distinction between this fiction and the form of reporting.

Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor's legal representative, the law firm Separovic, Spehar and Gavranic, issued a press release following the talk show, assessing that Stankovic's conduct contained all the elements of defamation with the sole intent to damage Kosor's honour and reputation.

Stankovic made the incorrect statement that Kosor acquired and bought the flat in question unlawfully, the law firm said, adding that at the end of the talk show, Stankovic conducted a fictitious interview with Pilsel impersonating Kosor.

According to the law firm, all the statements made in the talk show were entirely incorrect and malicious and represented an unprecedented lack of professionalism, given that it was conducted with the sole purpose of defaming a third person, in this case the Prime Minister.

Recalling that Kosor had denied such and similar allegations on a number of occasions, the law firm said that no one had contacted Kosor before the talk show or asked her for a comment on the subject that was to be discussed.

The law firm said that because of the conduct of its journalist, HTV was responsible under the Media Act for the damage caused to Kosor's dignity, honour and reputation, and announced that they would notify the Croatian Journalists Association and the Croatian Radio and Television Programmes Council.

The Journalist Association's council of honour is likely to consider the case by the end of this month.