ZAGREB, June 21, 2019 – The Commission on Conflict of Interest Prevention said on Friday it had no authority to decide on the exemption of the Commission Chair Nataša Novakovic in the case of Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, adding that this should be decided by the authorities that supervise the Commission’s work, and if they declare that they have no jurisdiction, the matter should be decided by the Constitutional Court.
The Commission said that the only provision relevant to the exemption of the Commission Chair is Article 24 (5) of the General Administrative Procedure Act which stipulates that if there is no appellate authority (which is the case in proceedings before the Commission), exemption should be decided by the authority responsible for the supervision of the Commission. It noted that this law applies to all cases handled by the Commission.
Last month, the Commission was to examine the role of Prime Minister Plenković in the drafting of the law on emergency administration in systemically important companies, known as the Lex Agrokor, and whether he was in a conflict of interest. This prompted Plenković to ask the Commission to disqualify Novakovic from the case because between 2006 and 2018 she had worked with the Croatian Employers’ Association, of which the Agrokor conglomerate was a member and former Agrokor owner Ivica Todorić was one of the organisation’s founders, and because between 2007 and 2011 Damir Kuštrak, a member of Agrokor’s management and supervisory boards, was HUP president.
More news about conflict of interest issues can be found in the Politics section.
