Presenting the proposal to amend the Notary Public Act, Josip Salapić, state secretary at the Ministry of Justice, said that the proposed amendments allow parties to participate in legal procedures online and that they provide for new rules in the appointment of notaries.
“Until now, the minister signed a decision on the appointment of a notary-public without seeing who this person was. We had certain problems about it and now we want everything to be transparent,” Salapić said.
The proposal provides for the selection process to be conducted by an independent commission and for short-listed candidates to be interviewed by the minister.
MP Miro Bulj (Bridge) objected to this, asking whether candidates would need “a party membership card” for the interview. He also expressed his dissatisfaction at the fact that notarial fees would be regulated by rules and not by law, over which parliament would have no influence.
Katarina Peović of the Workers’ Front also complained about high notarial fees, to which Salapić said that notarial expenses had been reduced to a minimum through amendments to the Enforcement Act.
Lawmakers agreed that the Signature, Manuscript and Transcript Authentication Act, adopted 50 years ago, should be repealed.
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