CROATIAN JUSTICE MINISTER AFFIRMS JUDICIAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L ZAGREB 000149 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SCE - KABUMOTO, S/WCI-PROSPER, EUR/ACE-NEFIRD, INL/AAE-JHARTSHORN JUSTICE FOR BRENDA JOHNSON E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/24/2014 TAGS: PGOV KJUS PREF PREL KAWC HR SUBJECT: CROATIAN JUSTICE MINISTER AFFIRMS JUDICIAL REFORMS, REFUGEE RETURNS REF: A) 03 ZAGREB 2671 B)03 ZAGREB 2642 C) FRIEDMAN-EFIRD E-MAIL 1/20/04 Classified By: Ambassador Ralph Frank, reasons 1.5 (b) & (d) SUMMARY and COMMENT -------------- ¶1. (C) In an introductory call on new Minister of Justice Vesna Skare-Ozbolt, Ambassador Frank welcomed the Minister's positive statements on cooperation with the ICTY and urged quick resolution of the Gotovina case. The Ambassador praised achievements in reforming the State Prosecutor's office under Chief State Prosecutor Mladen Bajic, and stressed the need for comparable judicial reforms. Skare-Ozbolt laid out her four-point plan for thorough judicial reforms and committed on refugee returns to "fully protect private property." Skare-Ozbolt brings a burst of new energy to a lackadaisical Ministry, but will face an uphill battle to convince the judiciary to go along with her reforms. However, our new assistance program to help improve local capacity to prosecute war crimes cases will benefit from this new momentum for change. End Summary and Comment. ICTY Cooperation Key -------------- ¶2. (C) Ambassador Frank paid an introductory call on Minister of Justice Vesna Skare-Ozbolt on January 23. Also participating were Assistant Minister Zdravko Stojanovic, PolOff Justin Friedman, and USAIDOff Chuck Howell. The Ambassador welcomed the commitment of the new government to cooperate fully with the ICTY. However, the U.S. was deeply concerned by comments in the press by Sabor President Vladimir Seks indicating the U.S. had not discussed the Gotovina case on Seks's and Foreign Minster Zuzul's recent visit to Washington. The Ambassador stressed that resolution of the Gotovina case was an important part of the Washington discussions and that he had spoken to Prime Minister Sanader that morning about the GoC correcting any public misperceptions created by the Sabor President's statements. Skare-Ozbolt noted this comment reaffirmed her government's commitment to cooperate fully with the ICTY. Later the same day, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement retracting Seks's comments. Judicial Reform High Priority -------------- ¶3. (C) Ambassador Frank praised reforms achieved by State Prosecutor Mladen Bajic in his office and challenged Minister Skare-Ozbolt to achieve similar reforms in the judiciary. Skare-Ozbolt agreed with the Ambassador's comment that judicial reforms were also necessary to improve investor confidence in Croatia. She said she planned to keep in place existing programs to improve court performance, including the USAID, World Bank, EU funded municipal court automation program, while improving on their implementation. ¶4. (C) Minister Skare-Ozbolt said she would implement a four-point plan to tackle the serious problems still facing the judicial sector. First, she plans to move judicial training programs from the ineffective Center for Judicial Education and create a new Judicial Academy in cooperation with the Zagreb Law School. There, prospective and current judges would receive additional training to encourage individual courts to specialize in areas such as family law or commercial law. ¶5. (C) Second, to help remove the 1.5 million court case backlog, Minister Skare-Ozbolt will introduce legislation allowing cases to be transferred between courts, noting that sixty percent of the backlog is in the Zagreb and Split courts. She also plans to create new criminal and civil courts as well as a land registry court for Zagreb, having already identified facilities to be renovated for this purpose. ¶6. (C) Third, Minister Skare-Ozbolt plans to fund the hiring of 550 new court counselors (equivalent to U.S. clerks) who would help judges manage administrative matters, draft decisions, and even handle simple cases directly. These counselors would all be bar-approved lawyers, who could use these positions to demonstrate their suitability to become judges. Finally, some laws, including aspects of the criminal code changes annulled by the Constitutional Court (ref A),would be changed to improve court efficiency. ¶7. (C) Minister Skare-Ozbolt also pointed to implementation of alternative dispute resolution legislation and better E training of government officials on when to use courts to improve the efficiency of the court system. With these measures, Minister Skare-Ozbolt expects to resolve the case backlog in three to five years. Support Refugee Returns -------------- ¶8. (C) Ambassador Frank welcomed commitments by Prime Minister Sanader to promote the return of refugees to Croatia, noting the role of the Ministry of Justice would be critical in this effort. Minister Skare-Ozbolt said she had considerable experience on the challenges involved from her previous experience working on the peaceful reintegration of the Slavonia region into Croatia but committed to "fully protect private property." Comment -------------- ¶9. (C) Minister Skare-Ozbolt's energy, apparent commitment, and engagement on the issues of judicial reform and refugee return are a welcome change from her predecessor. Minister Skare-Ozbolt also indicated that she wanted to see clinical legal education more widely introduced in Croatia. While we sense a new energy and direction from her Ministry staff as well, her key challenge will be to convince deeply conservative judiciary and law school faculties to accept considerable changes to the way they do their jobs. We have supported such efforts in the past with limited success, but have a declining ability to support new efforts as SEED funding dries up. ¶10. (C) Over the last year, the GoC has made uneven progress in improving its ability to prosecute war crimes cases domestically (ref B). Post will seek to leverage new War Crimes Court assistance funds (ref C) with Minister Skare-Ozbolt's commitment to implement court system reforms, as well as EU judicial education programs now in place. FRANK NNNN