"This sentence provides enough evidence and indicates that changes to the Criminal Code are necessary," Skare Ozbolt told Hina in a comment on the ruling which she described as surprising.
"Defamation has been decriminalised with the latest legislative changes, but judges obviously have problem accepting it," the minister said.
The president of the Croatian Journalists Association (HND), Dragutin Lucic, said that today's ruling, as well as the sentence imposed recently on writer Predrag Matvejevic, showed that defamation had not been decriminalised as claimed by the minister.
Reporter Slavica Mrkic Modric was sentenced for defamation against the head of the Rijeka City Office and wife of former deputy prime minister Slavko Linic, Ksenija Linic, who sued the reporter over a satyrical article issued at the time of the Rijecka Banka scandal, which she said had caused her mental anguish.
According to last year's changes to the Criminal Code, reporters no longer must answer for defamation, but this does not apply to cases when expressions used by a person and other circumstances indicate that the sole purpose of that person's conduct was to harm somebody's reputation.