Bajic said that the Office for the Prevention of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) should be strengthened both in terms of personnel and work space, because all corruption and organised crime investigations were being handled by only 25 advisers to the USKOK Director.

Bajic said that work on important cases had intensified only in the second half of 2009 after the newly-adopted Law on Criminal Procedure gave the Chief State Attorney's Office (DORH) much greater powers.

He rejected media reports about the monitoring of communications of some 80,000 people. "This disturbing figure was irresponsibly made public," Bajic said, adding that last year, based on court warrants, the DORH had been listening in on 873 people.

Bajic recalled that the DORH's work depended on the work of the police and the Ministry of Finance, which he said had a duty to discover crimes and report them to the DORH.

"The DORH is open to the judgement of the public because it is responsible for the success of a given case. It tends to be forgotten that the DORH's primary task is criminal prosecution and not discovering crime," Bajic said.

He said that 664 of the 1,262 reports for corruption-related crimes had been rejected last year, noting that this was not a worrying figure because most of the rejected reports had been filed by those who were unhappy with decisions of judges, state attorneys or administrative officers.

Bajic said it was too early to make conclusions about the DORH's contribution to combating corruption, despite verdicts handed down in particular cases.

"If our work reduces corruption and at least partly increases public trust in institutions that prosecute crime, our work will be assessed positively," the Chief State Attorney said.

The report says that the DORH was successful in as many as 94.2 per cent of corruption and organised crime related indictments; 47.9 per cent of criminal reports resulted in criminal charges being pressed, while charges in 41.3 per cent of cases were dropped. The number of charges that are brought by prosecutors, only to be dropped later, is increasing by the year, the report shows.

Bajic said that a conclusion on the successfulness of the DORH could not be made based on the large number of charges dropped, adding that the DORH had a duty to record each complaint and decide on it.

The opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) was the only party to announce that it would not endorse Bajic's report. Its deputies criticised Bajic for failure to warn about the pressure being exerted on the DORH, which prompted accusations from the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) that the SDP was trying to install its man at the helm of the DORH to prevent any criminal prosecution of its members.

SDP leader Zoran Milanovic said that his party was interested in the entire work of the DORH, not just a part of it.

Vladimir Seks of the HDZ said that the SDP was trying to protect its members from possible criminal prosecution. He said that the HDZ was supporting Bajic in the successful and efficient fight against corruption, recalling that the European Commission concluded in its latest Progress Report that Croatia had made significant progress in Chapter 23 (Judiciary and Fundamental Rights).

"That progress is due to the effective work of the DORH, USKOK and the Chief State Attorney," Seks concluded.

Vesna Pusic of the Croatian People's Party/Croatian Pensioners' Party (HSU) group said that they would endorse the report because the DORH's work at the moment was "top notch".