ZAGREB, April 30 (Hina) - Deciding for the first time about whether the President of the Republic should be stripped of immunity, the Croatian Constitutional Court on Wednesday dismissed a request by Dunja Zloic Gotovina that criminal
proceedings be launched against Stjepan Mesic.
ZAGREB, April 30 (Hina) - Deciding for the first time about whether
the President of the Republic should be stripped of immunity, the
Croatian Constitutional Court on Wednesday dismissed a request by
Dunja Zloic Gotovina that criminal proceedings be launched against
Stjepan Mesic. #L#
The court unanimously decided not to approve the launching of
criminal proceedings against President Mesic.
Explaining their decision, the judges referred to constitutional
regulations which state that the President of the Republic enjoys
immunity and that criminal proceedings cannot be initiated against
him without previous approval by the Constitutional Court.
Dunja Zloic Gotovina sued Mesic for libel with the Zagreb Municipal
Court in late 1999, at which time he did not hold the post of
president. The reason for the lawsuit was Mesic's having allegedly
stated that in the early 1990s, together with Ante Beljo, he had
brought to Zloic Gotovina, who at the time worked for the defence
ministry, around 300,000 German marks, collected from Croatian
emigrants. Mesic said he had not received any receipt for the money
and that Zloic Gotovina had told him to leave the money in a book-
case and that she would take care of it later.
The Zagreb Municipal Court in 2000 referred the plaintiff to the
Constitutional Court regarding her request that Mesic be stripped
of immunity, which she did in December 2001.
Judge rapporteur Agata Racan has said that judges with the
Constitutional Court decided after several discussions about the
request that the Constitutional Law on the Constitutional Court did
not define a decision-making process for stripping the head of
state of immunity and that the Court directly applied
constitutional regulations on presidential immunity.
Mesic's statement is one in a series of statements the purpose of
which was to show that the Diaspora money was spent recklessly,
Zloic Gotovina's attorney Zvonimir Hodak told Hina. He added that
the statement was a libel and that his client did not remember the
event Mesic described having taken place, as well as that Ante Beljo
also said that he had never visited the defence ministry together
with Mesic.
(hina) rml sb