ZAGREB, January 25, 2018 – The Croatian parliament ‘s Committee on the Constitution, Standing Orders and Political System on Thursday discussed the proposed changes to the Standing Orders of the national legislature and a draft code of ethics for lawmakers, and the proposals are now being fine-tuned.
According to the proposals tabled by the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), Question Time is to be held once a month, limiting the number of questions to 15, with 8 of them to be asked by the Opposition and 7 by the governing majority’s deputies.
Currently, Question Time ushers in a new session, which means it is held four times a year, whereas the new proposal would enable 11 Question Times per year, the committee’s chairman Željko Reiner said.
In addition, the new Standing Orders will regulate the institute of rebuttal in a new fashion so as to put an end to the current practice in which rebuttals have become a dominant form of the parliamentary discussion.
Reiner cited the statistics which he labelled as bizarre as the data show that since the beginning of the term of the current 9th Sabor, there have been some 12,500 rebuttals and counter-rebuttals, while individual discussions have come to 690, although the latter are supposed to be the main form in which lawmakers take the floor, Reiner said.
Social Democrat MP, Peđa Grbin, welcomed the frequency of Question Time, however, he expressed dissatisfaction with the restricted time for it.
