COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE ENDORSES BILL ON OFFICE FOR FIGHTING ORGANISED CRIME

ZAGREB, Sept 17 (Hina) - The Croatian Parliament's Committee on Justice on Monday endorsed a final bill on the establishment of an office for fighting corruption and organised crime (USKOK). Justice Minister Stjepan Ivanisevic said the bill was considerably revised to be less restrictive in relation to its initial version. He explained that the bill significantly reduced the powers of the office, especially those over suspected illegal property. He reminded that the original version of the bill gave the office the power to prevent the reproduction of 'suspicious property', which aroused the protest of experts. A Zagreb Law Faculty professor, Ladislav Krapec, warned about "a neurosis in the criminal justice system" in all countries in transition due to heightened sensitivity towards human rights issues. Too much neurosis could paralyse criminal justice by imposing too many restrictions, Krapec said, recalling the bill referred to the most severe forms of crime, which was why it had to be particularly restrictive. Committee chairman Luka Trconic (Croatian Peasants' Party) said the bill offered "the right balance" between the extensive powers granted to the USKOK by the initial version of the bill and the protection of human rights, adding that "in the case of organised crime, it is sometimes necessary to resort to certain restrictions of human rights." Today's session of the Committee on Justice was attended for the first time after six months by the members of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), who had previously boycotted the committee's work due to parliament's refusal to appoint HDZ's Ivic Pasalic member of the Committee on Internal Affairs. (hina) rml