Last autumn the Sabor incorporated in the Distraint Law a provision on the inclusion of public notaries in distraint procedures. The changed law should have gone into force on 1 October this year.
Given that other decrees and by-laws regulating the matter were not adopted in the meantime, the said provision could not be implemented, and the government led by Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) chief Ivo Sanader has asked the government to amend the law and rule out the possibility of the engagement of public notaries in distraint procedures.
The incumbent opposition parties in the parliament, which last autumn made up the ruling coalition, on Tuesday said that the exclusion of public notaries from distraint procedures would mean that the incumbent government had scrapped plans for continuing the judicial reform which the former government had began.
Opposition MPs also believe that the engagement of public notaries should help alleviate the burden on courts, which have 600,000 orders in distraint procedures waiting for the execution.
HDZ MP Velimir Plese said the government had no option but to revoke the said provision, and added that only three European countries had public notaries engaged in distraint procedures.