TRCONIC, CRNIC WELCOME RACAN'S PROPOSAL ON MEETING ON JUDICIARY

ZAGREB, May 19 (Hina) - Luka Trconic, chairman of the Parliament's Committee on Judiciary, and Supreme Court President Ivica Crnic have welcomed a proposal by Prime Minister Ivica Racan that representatives of legislative, executive and judicial authorities hold a joint meeting to try to find solutions for the current situation in the judiciary. #L# The meeting, which has been scheduled for Monday, is to focus on possible models of judicial reform, the government said. "The Prime Minister's initiative is good. One should establish the situation in the judiciary, increase its efficiency and reduce a backlog of cases," Trconic told Hina. Trconic does not think that the meeting was prompted by lack of legislative or judicial support for the government's reforms but by poor international assessments of the situation in the Croatian judiciary. European Union foreign ministers warned Croatia at a meeting in Brussels last Monday that the judicial system had to be reformed if Croatia was to attract foreign investments and continue on the path towards European integration. Trconic believes that 80 percent of the measures taken so far to reform the judiciary are good, including replacements in the Supreme Court leadership, the appointment of the new State Judicial Council as well as recently initiated changes to the criminal law. Supreme Court president Ivica Crnic believes the meeting would be a good opportunity to point to the responsibility of the judicial, as well as executive and legislative authorities for the situation in the judiciary. Croatian courts received a total of 1,618,721 new cases last year. Of a total of 2,758,382 cases that were being processed, 1,510,733 were solved and 1,247,549 remained unsolved, the Justice Ministry said. (hina) rml