President Milanović Confirms Judge Dobronić is His Candidate for Supreme Court President
After attending the official unveiling of the bust of sculptor Ante Župić and the awards presentation ceremony in the Alka of Sinj Museum in Sinj, President Milanović took questions from journalists.
Asked about an alleged boycott by some generals of the President’s official reception in Knin for Homeland War commanders, the President of the Republic replied: “Who has announced a boycott? Ljubo Ćesić Rojs has not. Josip Đakić is not a general, he is a bum, and a member of Parliament, in other words he is nobody. The others are Croatian generals and great commanders. Rojs will be there, Pavao Miljavac will be there and Ante Kotromanović will be there. Most people will be there, they will surely come. Some have been put in an awkward position because their invitations arrived on the last day, and the ministry is responsible for that. Logistics are not the responsibility of the Office of the President but the ministries, and they operate in the way they do. Next year will be different. I will organize this in my own way next year and I will make sure everyone is notified at least two weeks in advance.”
The President was asked whether Judge Radovan Dobronić is his candidate for Supreme Court President. “Yes, I talked with him and we agreed that he responds to the call for applications. Now we will see what will those who undermined, torpedoed and dishonoured my previous candidate do. Now the candidate is a man, he is a judge, a relatively well-known judge. He is not my friend but I followed his work and interestingly – and there are other such cases – he failed to progress to the very top in the commercial court system, although he tried. Personally, I know some people who are great judges, who are smart, educated, honest people, yet they were not able to move away from the municipal court. It bothered me that these people, who proved themselves in their profession, failed to progress to the next level in their mature years of judicial practice,” said President Milanović.
Regarding the disciplinary proceedings that were allegedly initiated against Judge Dobronić, President Milanović said: “I do not know about that, neither does Judge Dobronić, nor do some members of the State Judicial Council. It’s a good way to bury someone with charcoal and gravel, it turns out the man is a sluggard in his 60s, yet there are decades of exemplary judicial work behind him. That also says something about the system. No one will impose a candidate for Supreme Court President on me, I will not allow that, and when the selection is finalised he will have nothing to do with me anymore, as was the case thus far. I have a problem proposing people I know too well. I don’t know Dobronić very well … there is no friendly relationship. I think he is an excellent judge, incorruptible, non-partisan. I think he reached a very important verdict in 2013, which saved at least 200,000 people in Croatia.
President Milanović also said that disciplinary proceedings against Judge Dobronić will not change his opinion and that it is interesting that judges who often appear in the media are never disciplined while on the other hand, if they work on the most complex cases, they are subject to criticism.
“Judges who are selected according to arbitrary criteria and who advance according to such criteria should not appear in public and comment on public policy,” President Milanović believes.
Asked by a journalist if he had discussed the new candidate with Prime Minister Plenković, the President replied: “No, I did not. If it weren’t for this legal unconstitutional solution, which essentially seeks to put pressure on the President of the Republic, I would probably have talked with the head of the strongest political party, in this case the head of the HDZ, to agree in advance. Now, when the farce in the form of a public call is imposed on me, how can I talk with the leader of the HDZ?”
The President asserted: “I will propose a candidate according to my own criteria and if Plenković asks me, I will be happy to tell him what I told you without being sarcastic.”
PHOTO : Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Marko Beljan