President Milanović: I will pardon anyone who is targeted by that law for leaking information from investigations
“If that regulation takes effect, if a sufficient number of corrupt creatures in Parliament support it, I promise everyone who breaks that law that I will pardon them if they are targeted. I finally see the purpose of the institute of Presidential pardon: to stand up against oppressors and crooks and those who would want to arrest others. Any reporter, editor, any lawyer who gets arrested will get my pardon,” the President of the Republic Zoran Milanović said today, commenting on the Government’s proposal to amend the Penal Code to criminalise information leaks from investigations.
The President of the Republic warned that the proposed amendment to the law is “about a man’s maniacal drive to demand his pound of flesh, to take revenge,” he said in reference to Prime Minister Plenković. President Milanović reminded that his Government suspended investigation secrecy in 2013 “and declared investigations non-public because for a number of years no related proceedings had been launched due to information leaks from investigations.” “And do you know who leaked information the most? DORH and USKOK (Office for Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime),” President Milanović added, warning that DORH (State Prosecutor’s Office) benefited the most from that.
“Then in the later stages of investigations, when the documentation became available to everyone, the defense teams also started doing it – everyone did it according to their needs. Not a single criminal proceeding had been launched and in order to change that travesty, that farce, we simply abolished investigation secrecy,” President Milanović clarified.
President Milanović explained the current Government’s intention to reintroduce investigation secrecy in the following way: “A vengeful protégé bent on tyrannising reporters because someone published a photo of his wife, without any bad intention. Stupidity and plain nonsense, nothing. Or, because the (leaks) that had been coming out of that investigation, from the (telephone) conversations, show what kind of party and Government he runs and what kind of people they are.”
Furthermore, President Milanović believes that this event speaks to the importance of oversight of institutions such as DORH. “That is incredibly important, because otherwise these people will do whatever they want, and that’s what they’ve started doing. We can see what kind of conversations, contacts happen. Most of them probably do not constitute an offence but they reveal what DORH does do and what it does not do. If we had not read this information – which this time may have been leaked by the lawyers and published by the newspapers – we would not know what kind of relations and parallels reign in that world,” said the President, adding that some legitimate questions can be raised now that the documents have been made public.
“Why did DORH, which has information on this, not investigate the former deputy head of Plenković’s cabinet, who ran off to Brussels? She should have been investigated, but DORH did not do that,” said President Milanović, adding that otherwise, the interested public would not know about these scams and would not be able to ask a fully legitimate question: why did they detain these particular individuals, and not even talk to the others? “Well, that’s what Plenković wants to keep out of sight. That’s the main motive, followed by the personal motive to demand his pound of flesh,” said President Milanović, warning that “if that barbaric and maniacal regulation takes effect,” he would use the institute of Presidential pardon for anyone who is targeted by the law.