“In cases like this the burden of responsibility is always on the system. We need to see what can and should be rectified,” Božinović told the press on the sidelines of the second day of the US Croatia Forum in Zagreb when asked whether he considered himself responsible and whether he would step down.
He said that the point of such court rulings was to rectify the shortcomings of the system through rules or improvements of practice. “The purpose of courts is to draw attention to such shortcomings,” he added.
Božinović said that the death of the little migrant girl was a tragedy that affected everyone. “It happened in the territory of another country. An investigation was conducted and the court reached its conclusion. Now we have to find solutions and adopt measures to improve the system,” the minister said.
The judgment, which found that Croatia violated the girl’s right to life, has become final after the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights rejected the Croatian application for re-examination of the case.
The Centre for Peace Studies (CMS) said today that the government and Prime Minister Andrej Plenković could no longer look away but must urgently replace those responsible, including the minister of the interior, national chief of police Nikola Milina, head of the Directorate for Borders Zoran Ničeno, and state secretary Terezija Gras.
Croatian authorities will now have to take concrete steps to ensure that something like this never happens again, the CMS said. It urged the government to adopt measures to stop illegal and violent expulsions of illegal migrants from Croatia, ensure efficient investigations, punish perpetrators, and ensure full independence and efficiency of the police oversight mechanism.
Madina Hussiny was hit by a train at the Croatia-Serbia border in November 2017 after the Croatian authorities allegedly denied her family the opportunity to seek asylum and ordered them to return to Serbia along the tracks.
The Strasbourg-based court found Croatia responsible for a number of violations of rights under the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to life, the prohibition on inhuman and degrading treatment, the prohibition of collective expulsions of aliens, the right to security and liberty, and the right of individual petition.
