Opposition deputies walked out after the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) rejected their request that the dissolution of the Hina Governing Council should be postponed until the government proposed new members.
The opposition parties -- the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP), the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Croatian People's Party (HNS) -- insisted that the dissolution of the Hina Governing Council might create a legal vacuum in which the agency would not be able to function in accordance with the law, because the Hina Act does not provide for the present situation.
"If we vote on this, Hina will have two directors and will not have a Governing Council," HSP deputy Pero Kovacevic said, requesting that a vote be postponed.
The request was backed by the HNS and the SDP, which said that regardless of shortcomings in the election of members of the Council, Hina could not function without the governing body.
Florijan Boras of the HDZ claimed that there were no political or legal reasons for postponing the vote, and that any legal ambiguities would be duly addressed by competent bodies in accordance with the Hina Act.
After his speech, opposition deputies walked out of the chamber, and Speaker Vladimir Seks concluded the session, scheduling the next one for November 8.
Last Friday the government proposed that parliament relieve Bozo Skoko, Dijana Katica, Drazen Jovic and Ivan Rusan of their duties as members of the Hina Governing Council because they had elected Smiljanka Skugor-Hrncevic as the agency's new director without a fifth member of the Council, who is to be appointed from among Hina's employees. After that Skoko, Katica and Jovic tendered their resignations.
The government proposed their dismissal because it believed that without the fifth member the agency's staff were denied the possibility to state their opinion about candidates for Hina's director.
At today's session the parliament did not discuss the government's proposal for the appointment of a member of the Hina Governing Council representing the agency's employees.