ZAGREB, February 16, 2019 – Slovenia has filed an additional motion at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg to its application against Croatia from 2016, seeking damages due to alleged violations of the rights of the defunct Ljubljanska Banka Zagreb (LBZ) in an attempt to recover loans the bank issued during the former Yugoslav era to companies with their headquarters in Croatia.
In the motion, Slovenia requests, among other things, that an oral hearing be held in the case.
Last year the ECHR said that the case would be examined by its Grand Chamber, which means that if the court decides to consider the case, its ruling will be final.
With its application, Slovenia is trying to prove that due to the problem of blocked Yugoslav-era savings of Croatian citizens in LBZ, Croatian governments did not allow court proceedings whereby LBZ wanted to collect its receivables to end in the bank’s favour, i.e. that the governments intervened in the judiciary.
A former justice minister in Slovenia, Goran Klemenčič, in 2016 stated that LBZ managed to retrieve only 700,000 euro through Croatian courts in cases LBZ had launched in 25 years since the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, because “Croatian executive authorities directly interfered in the judiciary and prevented enforcement.”
At the same time, Croatia’s judicial authorities “changed court practice and prevented LBZ from successfully collecting its legitimate receivables” from Croatian companies, he said.
Therefore, Slovenia is requesting the ECHR to rule in its favour for “at least 370 million euro in damages.”
More news on the relations between Croatia and Slovenia can be found in the Politics section.
