ZAGREB, April 2 (Hina) - The Croatian parliament on Friday passed a new law on culture councils, advisory bodies at the Ministry of Culture, dissolving the Architecture and Urban Planning Council and reducing the number of council
members from the present seven to five.
ZAGREB, April 2 (Hina) - The Croatian parliament on Friday passed a new
law on culture councils, advisory bodies at the Ministry of Culture,
dissolving the Architecture and Urban Planning Council and reducing
the number of council members from the present seven to five.#L#
Council members will from now on be appointed and dismissed by the
culture minister rather than the government. The new law binds towns
with more than 40,000 inhabitants to set up such councils.
At the government's proposal, the parliament amended the law on the
prevention of drug abuse, under which the government, rather than
courts, would appoint a commission that would be responsible for the
destruction of confiscated drugs. A proposal by the Social Democratic
Party (SDP), that drugs could also be destroyed before the completion
of legal proceedings, was rejected.
The parliament rejected proposed amendments to the Law on Defence,
tabled by the Party of Rights (HSP), which would have given the
president of the republic the authority to mobilise on his own
initiative some of the armed forces in the event of threat to national
security while the prime minister is away.
The government was instructed to report to the parliament within the
next 60 days on the state of the armed forces and national security.
The parliament approved reports by the National Audit Office on the
spending of budgetary funds in 2002 and on privatisation audits
carried out in the second half of 2003.
At the proposal of the SDP and Libra, the Audit Office was instructed
to send the reports to the Office of the Public Prosecutor and the
Interior Ministry, which in turn must report to the parliament by July
1 on criminal proceedings initiated on the basis of those reports.
(Hina) vm sb