The Government moved for the dismissal of Ivan Rusan, Drazen Jovic, Dijana Katica and Bozo Skoko, with the explanation that the four members decided to appoint Smiljanka Skugor-Hrncevic as Hina's new director, although the council was not complete given that it had not the fifth member representing the agency's staff.
This fact was interpreted by the Ivo Sanader Cabinet as "a democratic deficit".
During the parliamentary debate, members of the Opposition brandished the government's conduct in this case as "farcical", "ludicrous", "sloppy", while members from the ruling majority said that there was nothing left for the government to do but propose dissolution of the council.
Lino Cervar of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) said that to appoint a director without a representative of employees was a classic example of a lack of respect for democratic procedure and of denying employees the right to make decisions on their own.
"Hina must not and will not be exposed to anything that can undermine the correctness and impartiality of its news," Cervar said.
The Opposition recalled that during the procedure for appointing the new Governing Council four months ago, it warned that nominees did not meet the criteria for the post and that there was no nomination for the fifth member.
However, the Opposition was today divided over possible causes for the proposal for the dismissal of the Council.
Antun Kapraljevic of the HNS (Croatian People's Party) believes that this was about intra-party wrangling in the ruling HDZ.
Damir Kajin of the IDS (Istrian Democratic Party) believes that the four-member Council had become too autonomous for the Government's tastes, adding that Hina "has so far been anaemic but it has performed its job in a fair fashion".
Nenad Stazic of the SDP (Social Democratic Party) believes that the Government's explanation was unacceptable and that "the vanity of Prime Minister (Ivo Sanader) has been harmed, given that the Council did not elect the person whom he wanted."
Antun Vujic of the SDP speculated that Sanader and President Stjepan Mesic made a deal about candidates for filling in some posts in the public media.
Some still think they can bypass the law to exert their influence on regulatory bodies and replace those whom they do not like, Vujic said.
Last Friday the Government proposed to parliament to relieve of duty Hina's Governing Council because it believes that without the fifth member representing employees, employees have been denied the possibility to state their opinion about candidates for Hina's director.
We believe it is necessary to react to a deficit of democracy which happened in this particular case, notably because the Governing Council extended the mandate of the incumbent director of Hina, Mirko Bolfek, until year's end. The decision (on the new director) could have been made after the election of the fifth member to the Governing Council, and this would have been more important for democracy, Prime Minister Sanader said on that occasion. He reiterated that the week before the government had proposed to parliament that Vladimir Lulic be appointed fifth member of the Governing Council. Lulic was nominated by the Hina's Workers' Council. We accepted the proposal of the Hina Workers' Council and forwarded it to parliament, which should have discussed it during the ongoing session, so as to make Hina's Governing Council complete, the PM said.
"If it wanted to act in accordance with the law, the Governing Council shouldn't have ignored the procedure for the election of the fifth member," Sanader said a day after the four-member Council elected Smiljanka Skugor-Hrncevic among five candidates to succeed Mirko Bolfek as the agency's director. According to the Council's decision, Skugor-Hrncevic was to take up the new post no later than 1 January 2007.
Last Sunday, three of four members of Hina's Governing Council resigned from their posts.
In a note sent to the government, the parliament and its Committee on Information, Computerisation and Media and to Hina, the three members of Hina's Governing Council said that their decision was motivated by their disagreement with the government's treatment of the Council, which they said had been faced with a dead-end situation in which the appointment of the fifth Council member representing the agency's employees was being procrastinated, while the legal deadline for the appointment of the new agency director was running out. The Council members who tendered their resignation consider the situation politicised and detrimental to the normal functioning of the agency.