President Milanović: Supreme Court must comply with its obligation and make a decision in order to end legal uncertainty of citizens in loan conversion case
The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović met on Tuesday in the Office of the President with the representatives of the Franak Association, the coordinator of the economic and legal team Goran Aleksić and activist Maruška Matulović. At the meeting, the representatives informed President Milanović of the main problems relating to the Supreme Court’s pending decision on the conversion of Swiss franc loans.
The Franak Association’s coordinator Goran Aleksić reminded that the Supreme Court has not yet made a decision on whether clients who converted Swiss franc loans are entitled to compensation – although seven years have passed since the conversion and almost five since the final class judgement. Mr. Aleksić considers this to be a major problem, especially because the statute of limitations on filing single lawsuits expires in 65 days, which will leave 35,000 individuals without the possibility to sue and seek potential compensation.
“Since the Constitutional Court upheld the validity of the conversion, the Supreme Court only needs to decide whether citizens are entitled to compensation. However, for almost five years the Supreme Court has not made a decision, which discourages citizens, as they do not know whether it makes sense or not to initiate court proceedings,” Mr. Aleksić warned. He described the unenviable legal position of those clients who converted their loans and called out the Government of the Republic of Croatia for ignoring this problem. He added that this does not surprise him because in its reply to the European Court of Justice, the Government argued that clients renounced compensation by converting Swiss franc loans, which is untrue according to Mr. Aleksić.
After speaking with the representatives of the Franak Association, President Milanović said the following: “It is unacceptable that the judges of the Supreme Court did not make a decision on the right to compensation until the last hour, that is, almost until the statute of limitations expires. The consequence of the Supreme Court judges’ inaction is legal uncertainty in which the scapegoat is the weaker party, in this case citizens, and not banks. The Supreme Court must comply with its obligation and make a decision in order to end the legal uncertainty that citizens have been exposed to for almost five years. Without going into the content of the decision itself, I believe that there is no justification for not resolving this multi-year dispute. In order to achieve legal certainty and the equality of all citizens before the law, the judges of the Supreme Court already had to make this decision and thus comply with their constitutional obligation.”
President Milanović was accompanied at the meeting by the Head of the Office of the President of the Republic Orsat Miljenić and Special Adviser to the President of the Republic for the Economy Velibor Mačkić.
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia/Marko Beljan