ZAGREB, August 25, 2018 – More than 40,000 kuna have been paid by lawmakers in penalties since July 2017 when the institute of fining unjustified absences from plenary sessions was introduced and not one month has gone by in the past 12 months without at least one lawmaker being absent without due justification.
The most absences occurred in December 2017 (27) and the least (1) in April this year.
In July, when parliament sat for a total of nine days, nine lawmakers were absent for one to three days.
Social Democratic Party (SDP) MP Ivan Klarin recorded the highest number of unjustified absences (17) before he withdrew from parliament to take up office as Mayor of Tisno.
MPs clocked up a significant number of inexcusable absences despite the fact that the law and the stance of the relevant parliamentary Elections, Appointments and Administration Committee provides a fairly flexible lee-way for justified absences.
Fines for inexcusable absences were introduced following a motion by the MOST party and in practice that means deducting 150 kuna for each day of absence from an MP’s flat-rate allowance of 1,500 kuna per month.
