Kolakusic in July stayed pre-bankruptcy settlement proceedings in Dalekovod and filed a motion with the Constitutional Court to assess if the law on financial operations and pre-bankruptcy settlement complies with the Constitution. This prompted the company to lodge a complaint with the Constitutional Court against Kolakusic's ruling.
The Constitutional Court found that motions for the evaluation of constitutionality can only be filed by bodies represented by their leaders and not physical persons within those bodies, which means that the motion for the evaluation of constitutionality in this case could only have been submitted by the president of Zagreb's Commercial Court and not by Kolakusic, who is the judge in the said case.
Citing the Constitution and other laws, Kolakusic said in a letter to the media that a court handed down a ruling in a case tried before it based on the decision of the judge to whom the case was assigned.
Court presidents are not authorised to hand down decisions in cases not assigned to them, which means they are not authorised to decide on staying a case assigned to another judge or filing a constitutionality motion after a case was stayed, said Kolakusic.
When acting in a concrete case, a judge represents the court, he said, adding that this was prescribed by the Constitution and other laws as well as regulations of most modern democracies, creating the personal responsibility of judges in handing down court decisions in concrete cases.