CRUSHING AS A LESSON

President of the Supreme Court Discharged

AIM Zagreb, 4 December, 1996

The President of the Supreme Court of Croatia was proclaimed a delinquent person - due to his sexual inclinations and alleged assistance to criminals. That is how Krunoslav Olujic, in just a few weeks, passed the road from a man of Tudjman's complete confidence to an enemy on whom the president declared war.

When more than a year and a half ago, he was appointed the head of the judiciary in Croatia, Olujic had a respectable career of one of the President's men - among other he was the state prosecutor, the head of the National Security Bureau which controls all Croatian secret services. Although at the new post, especially in the beginning, Olujic helped organization of the judiciary by measure of the ruling party, Olujic increasingly began to show signs of emancipation. He manifested it even by stepping out of the HDZ after he had been chosen for the present post. He explained his leaving the ruling party by the principle of depolitization of the judiciary, but also revealed that he was reproached for it. He opposed creation of party judiciary, insisted on professional, and not political criteria, he called purges in the judiciary "serious breaking of the backbone of the judicial authorities". Allegedly, the leadership could not forgive him for some specific court decisions, primarily - acquittal of Feral Tribune. People acquainted with Olujic say that he read the Constitution and has taken provisions on independence of the judiciary quite seriously. Lawyer Ante Nobilo claims that "settling accounts with Olujic began at the moment when he decided to keep the executive power at a distance, as prescribed by the Constitution".

Approximately two months ago, the head of the state sent word to him to resign. Spokesmen of the Presidential Palace did not manage to soften him, so Tudjman personally blackmailed him: if he agreed to resign - he would be appointed ambassador, on the contrary - a dossier with his dirty laundry, collected material by tapping his phone, would be made public. Since he saw no valid reason, as he says, for withdrawing, Olujic refused the President's demand and announced that he would defend himself by all available legal means. Moreover, he spoke in public about what was done to him: "The service for protection of the constitutional system is tapping my private telephone conversations and spreading rumours that I am a homosexual", said Olujic in an interview. Script writers later abandoned the accusation that he was a faggot, but started a new rumour about the at the moment most scandalous blasphemy in Europe - pedophilia.

At the top, a legal foundation was feverishly sought for overthrowing the President of the Supreme Court. According to law, it is necessary to have serious reasons for replacement - indictment for a crime or disciplinary proceedings. The Government initiated disciplinary proceedings, allegedly because Olujic's behavior was bad for the reputation of the Court, and, in his accusation of the judiciary as the main culprit for the delay in punishing crime, Tudjman mentioned "personnel weaknesses" at the top of the judiciary. Olujic believes that the state leader has in this way quite intentionally started a campaign which is aimed at his moral discrediting.

The disciplinary court, in a summary procedure, decided to relieve him of duty. The public was informed about it in a statement which was read in the central television news program, and which spoke of a founded suspicion that Olujic had sexual intercourse with persons under age and that he was helping criminals. The discharged President of the Supreme Court denied all accusations and challenged validity of the decision on his suspension from duty, claiming that it has exclusively a political background and that it uses the method of an open lynch. The political sentence has already been pronounced, the disciplinary proceedings shall acquire characteristics of inquisition, Olujic claims, announcing that, contrary to political blackmail and staged indictments, he would use means and mechanisms of the legal state in his defence.

Although they made the thundering sentence public even before the trial, the executioners in fact wish a silent execution, behind closed doors. First of all, because their evidence is very vague. It seems that apart from phono-records of private telephone conversations, they have no other evidence. And second, because at a public trial it would be impossible to hide that it is a staged process, so the prosecutors could easily turn into defendants. If for no other reason, for unauthorized tapping of the President of the Supreme Court. Lawyer Nobilo speaks about "a chain of plots conceived by the highest state authorities which have abused their authorization in settling accounts with the man they consider to be their political opponent". The third, the echo of the scandal has not taken the direction which was expected in the Presidential Palace. Instead of condemning Olujic, the public is much more revolted by his persecution. Three Olujic's lawyers believe that their biggest chance is the public. Suspended President of the Supreme Court was contacted by about a hundred lawyers who offered their services free of charge. Public defamation of Olujic was so repulsive that even the otherwise inert Church Commission "Justitia et Pax" reacted, reminding that everyone was entitled to a good reputation until otherwise proved. Some non-governmental organizations also reacted, calling Olujic "Becket in Mrdusa Donja". Claiming that it was hard to find a better example of abuse of judiciary for political purposes, the Civic Committee for Human Rights warned that publication of compromising details on Croatian television was violation of a fundamental right of every citizen and infringement of the Constitution, that it was an immoral and disgusting act, as well as that the Croatian TV, as the obedient propagandist service of the ruling party, was spreading intimate details about people marked to be politically destroyed.

There are at least three good reasons for Olujic's discharge. Reliable sources claim that he has manifested an inclination unbearable for the leadership towards independence of the judiciary proclaimed by the Constitution, rather than the opposite concept increasingly advocated by the administration. Indeed, Tudjman has recently spoken about the judiciary being just a component of an integral state authority; state attorney Petar Sale even claimed that judicial power must be an expression of the will of the ruling party. A law was adopted which gives the minister of justice the possibility to determine which cases the courts should give priority. It all points out that the leadership wishes absolute control of judiciary and its transformation into one of the levers of its power. Second, the replacement at the top of the Supreme Court should also be observed as part of the preparations for the forthcoming elections, because the president of this court is at the same time the president of the electoral commission. As the people are not to be trusted any more, Tudjman knows that at this post he must have an absolutely reliable person. And third, the lynch of Olujic is a message to all those who are refusing to bend down, including those in the ruling party. Not only with the people, Tudjman in fact has problems with his own party which is torn from within by factions, but also by a powerful feeling that the ship is tilting. That is why the boss is insisting on absolute obedience. Olujic must be crushed, so that nobody else dares turn a deaf ear to the supreme instructions, so that nobody in the HDZ dares be tempted to think with his own head.

JELENA LOVRIC