ZAGREB, April 20 (Hina) - The Croatian Parliament's Human and Ethnic Minority Rights Committee on Tuesday endorsed a report by Ombudsman Ante Klaric for 2003, in which he warned that the number of citizens' complaints had risen by 50
percent from 2002.
ZAGREB, April 20 (Hina) - The Croatian Parliament's Human and Ethnic
Minority Rights Committee on Tuesday endorsed a report by Ombudsman
Ante Klaric for 2003, in which he warned that the number of citizens'
complaints had risen by 50 percent from 2002.#L#
The increase in the number of complaints can be partly ascribed to the
fact that representatives of the Office of the Ombudsman visited more
counties and met more people in the field.
Klaric said that one of the biggest problems was failure to address or
delays in addressing requests for the reconstruction of houses in
former war-stricken areas. In this context Klaric called on the
government to honour its earlier promise and cancel the deadline for
the submission of requests.
He also drew attention to the fact that several thousand state-owned
flats in the formerly war-hit areas had not yet been registered as
state-property and were unlawfully occupied by some people who owned
flats elsewhere.
"If order were restored to this segment, I believe that 80 percent of
cases of homeless people would be solved, particularly those of
Bosnian Croat settlers and (ethnic) Serbs who want to return to their
homes," Klaric told the Committee.
Milorad Pupovac of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS)
criticised Klaric for failing to cite real reasons why many people had
left their homes during the war. Pupovac said that people were forced
to leave their homes and that they did not do so "in order not to take
part in the defence of Croatia". Later they were stripped of their
tenancy rights.
"The policy of evicting people from their flats was at work in Croatia
at the time, including verbal threats and forcible evictions, and
nobody asked those people why they were leaving, but they were
regarded as refugees or displaced persons," the SDSS deputy said.
Pupovac said that in Bosnia-Herzegovina 93 percent of claims for
restoration of property rights were solved and that Croatia was still
lagging behind.
"I know who in Croatia is withholding data on outstanding property
claims and does not want to inform the parliament and the government
of this. That person should be punished," Pupovac said without giving
the name of the person in question.
The parliamentary committee on the judiciary also endorsed the
report.
The report says that in 2003 the Office of Ombudsman received 286
complaints about the work of courts, mainly referring to
procrastinated legal proceedings.
The number of complaints of this kind is increasing by the year. The
Office of the Ombudsman is not authorised to examine the regularity of
the work of courts, and citizens have nobody else to send their
complaints to, the report reads.
(Hina) ms