HDZ'S DRAFT ON CHANGES TO CONSTITUTIONAL LAW ON COOPERATION WITH ICTY

ZAGREB, July 10 (Hina) - Croatian parliamentary deputies on Tuesday received a Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) draft on changes to the Constitutional Law on Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal which would enable Croatian judicial bodies to establish whether requests and orders of the Hague tribunal are legally founded. The parliament will discuss this request at an extraordinary session which should be held next week. According to the draft, the judicial authorities would be enabled to determine whether the Hague indictments are based on reliable evidence collected in a legal procedure. Should those bodies decide that indictments are not based on personal but on objective-superior responsibility, Croatia would, under the draft, have the right to turn down requests for the hand- over of its citizens. Explaining the reason for submitting the draft, the HDZ said it was possible to conclude from Prime Minister Ivica Racan's and other government officials' statements that the latest Hague indictments contained unacceptable political assessments which charged Croatian army officers with conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing and expulsion of 150,000 Croatian Serbs. Such statements open the possibility for the criminalisation of the Homeland War and jeopardising of the foundations of national security, reads an explanation accompanying HDZ's draft. (hina) sb rml