ZAGREB, December 17, 2018 – Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Monday the case of Darko Kovačević’s physical assault on a girl in Zadar last summer was a “horrific case of violence in which it’s more than clear, and the evidence is on the Internet, what exactly happened” and that he was outraged by the developments in this case. Justice Minister Dražen Bošnjaković visited Zadar on Sunday for talks with the presidents of local courts and prosecutors to examine the facts about Croatian court proceedings and the timeline in the case after Kovačević aka Daruvarac was released from investigative custody on Friday after six months, the maximum time he could be held in investigative custody.
“We all know the crime in this case and what he is charged with. This definitely isn’t good,” Bošnjaković told reporters on Sunday. He said the case was burdened by certain things about which nothing could have been done and that it would have been concluded had the judge in charge not become sick.
The minister announced amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act and the implementation of new European Union directives, saying this case would prompt legislative amendments to improve the legal framework so that such things did not happen again.
The prime minister said today “the way in which we as the state and the government can resolve this is by preventing the use of procedural institutes from endangering the fastness of proceedings, which is what happened in this case. The public is justifiably outraged. I’m as outraged as everyone because this case is obvious.”
Asked if legal amendments were being sought, Plenković said he had discussed this with Bošnjaković. “This is unacceptable, because I don’t think there’s anyone who can in any way justify this situation which, judging by everything we could see, is pretty clear,” he added.
More news on Croatia’s judiciary can be found in our Politics section.
