Eighty-seven MPs voted for the government's proposal to relieve of duty Vlaho Bogisic, Aleksandar Adler, Tomislav Radic and Damir Boras, while 34 were against and one abstained.
Ninety MPs voted for the appointment of Gordana Simonovic from the ranks of media experts and Josip Veber, Vlado Rajic and Roman Juric from the ranks of economic, legal and IT experts. Twenty-four MPs voted against and six abstained.
Slavica Cvitanic was unanimously appointed to the Steering Council from the ranks of the news agency's employees.
Hina's Steering Council has five members appointed and relieved of duty by parliament.
Under the Hina Act, parliament may relieve of duty a member of the Steering Council before the expiry of his or her term at his or her request, if the member resigns, if his or her work breaks the law or other regulations pertaining to Hina's work, if the member causes major damage to the agency, and in other cases defined by the law and the Statute.
The dismissal of the previous council was requested by the ruling coalition this spring when members of the governing majority expressed dissatisfaction with a report on the council's performance from 1 May 2010 to the end of 2011. They criticised the Hina leadership for failing to halt negative financial and business trends and for pursuing an unsatisfactory editorial policy.
In late April, the parliamentary media committee proposed to parliament to dismiss the current director of the news agency, Smiljanka Skugor Hrncevic, and to appoint an acting director. The ruling majority changed this motion and on 11 May parliament decided to initiate the procedure to relieve the Steering Council members of duty.
Accordingly, on June 6, the government adopted a draft for calling applications for some of the Hina Steering Council members and on September 13 the government sent to parliament a proposal for the dismissal of the then members and appointment of new members of the council.