ZAGREB, Aug 11, 2020 – The leader of the Social Democratic Party’s (SDP) Split-Dalmatia County branch, Ranko Ostojic, said on Tuesday the announced police reform does not have “anything new”, and welcomed that Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic had “finally taken out of the storage something that was completed six year’s ago.”
“The colossal reform , as described by him, has been brought down to cameras that will record police behaviour and changes to Personal ID cards,” said Ostojic, the SDP’s former interior minister in Zoran Milanovic’s cabinet.
He added that the problem was in Minister Bozinovic who is “either poorly briefed or imisnformed or is lying.”
“I welcome that Bozinovic has finally pulled something that was done six years ago out of the storage, the entire infrastructure was made, all the software that can monitor police conduct. Then citizens will be safer and the police will not have problems related to the legality of their actions,” said Ostojic.
“Chips on ID cards can be inserted whenever… the pre-condition for that however was secured long ago when the projects were completed. I don’t see any reform in that, particularly of the police,” Ostojic added.
He added that the issuance of ID cards is not in the remit of the police in any case but is an administrative task and the question of who will issued or distribute them is by no means a reform.
As far as cameras are concerned, Ostojic said that not only were they procured six years ago for about 200 officers but other infrastructure had been prepared for their use then too.
He added that other reforms that Bozinovic was referring to had also been set up during Milanovic’s government.
He added that the only helicopter procured by Croatia was also during Milanovic’s government. “When someone says that all that was left behind is a pair of binoculars, that is a shameless lie,” said Ostojic.
Ostojic recalled that one of the preconditions for accession to the EU had existed even prior to July 1, 2013 an that was 6,200 border police while the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) later boasted that it had 6,500 border police officers.
“There cannot be any security or trust in someone who shamelessly utters untruths, undermines all the efforts conducted by police officers and those who ordered those matters to be conducted,” said Ostojic.
