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