"I strongly dismiss and refute lies which the SDP member of parliament expressed in the press. Such statement leads to legal insecurity," the minister told a news conference in Zagreb on Thursday, describing the claims made by Ingrid Anticevic-Marinovic as an immoral act of that parliamentary deputy.
Minister Lovrin also said that Anticevic-Marinovic made untrue statements when claiming that the Zagreb County Court was halting all criminal proceedings which would require testimonies and services of expert witnesses and that it had paid only one tenth of the agreed fees for their work.
This year, the ministry has allocated 129 million kuna for the work of expert witnesses, Lovrin said adding that the ministry had ensured enough funds for regular activities of courts.
In this context, she said that the ministry also cared about cost-efficient spending measures so that experts would not be asked to testify whenever it was not necessary.
Lovrin said that the ministry would soon compile a single system for paying tariffs for expert testimonies.
Assistant Justice Minister Igor Mihaljevic said that 2.16 billion kuna were allocated as budgetary funds for the judiciary this year, which is an eight-percent rise from 2005.
(1 EUR = 7.25 kuna)