ZAGREB, April 5, 2019 – The speaker of the Croatian parliament and secretary-general of the ruling HDZ party, Gordan Jandroković, said on Friday that the Supreme Court conviction of former prime minister Ivo Sanader to six years’ imprisonment was proof that the judiciary was impartial and that no one was above the law.
Asked by the press in Zagreb if the ruling was a burden on the HDZ, Jandroković said: “It would be better if there was no such ruling, but I repeat, it is a sentence against one person.”
Speaking to reporters during a visit to the eastern city of Osijek, Justice Minister Dražen Bošnjaković said that the sentence was imposed on Sanader as an individual and that it should not be confused with his role as prime minister or the party which he led at the time.
Asked to comment on the claim by Sanader’s defence counsel that they had learned of the Supreme Court ruling from the media, Bošnjaković said that he could not comment and that the question should be addressed to the Supreme Court, “which delivered its judgment to the Zagreb County Court, which handed down the first-instance ruling and whose task was to forward the judgment to the State Attorney’s Office and the accused.”
He added that it was hard for him to say how it happened that media learned of the ruling before one of the parties to the case because he did not know all the facts.
More news on HDZ can be found in the Politics section.
