Croatian President Zoran Milanović vehemently opposed the draft changes to the criminal code whereby media leaks from investigations would be treated as a crime, saying he would personally pardon anyone who breaks the law.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenković’s conservative government sent a draft of the planned changes into urgent parliamentary procedure on Thursday. It said it had to fast-track the process because the president had delayed co-signing the bill, which was announced in February and met with broad disapproval, but no public consultation was held.
The bill would introduce a crime of unofficial publishing of contents of criminal investigations. Such leaks, including official and classified transcripts, are often published in the Croatian media. The National Association of Journalists, several prominent judges, and lawyers have denounced the bill as “an attack on the media”.
“If this savage law comes into force, if there are enough corrupt characters in the parliament to support it, I promise everyone who breaks that law that I will pardon all of them,” Milanović said on Thursday, according to the national broadcaster HRT.
“Every journalist, every editor, every lawyer who gets arrested and detained for publishing a photo of Plenković’s aunt or sister-in-law, I shall pardon them,” he said.
The investigative weekly Nacional published a transcript from an official criminal investigation by the national anti-corruption unit USKOK, which included SMS messages mentioning Plenković’s wife.
The prime minister dismissed the report as a “manipulation with documents” and all the more reason to change the penal code and stop “gossip from becoming a public issue to create political damage”.
(Zoran Radosavljević | Euractiv.com)
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