The Croatian Parliament's Committee for the Constitution, the Standing Orders and Political System on Tuesday decided to penalise the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and two ethnic minorities' deputies Vladimir Bilek and Furio Radin and will not pay them three regular monthly payments after failing to submit reports on how they spent budgetary funds by the set deadline.
The committee decided by a majority vote about the fine for the ruling SDP and two parliamentarians, after it had received a report from the Office of the State Auditor which showed that they had failed to provide their respective reports by the deadline.
Committee Chairman Pedja Grbin of the SDP said that the SDP would abide by law, however Grbin and other participants in today's discussion pointed out that the biggest deficiency of the relevant legislation was that it envisaged sanctions that were too harsh for delays in the publication of financial statements.
Although it was only a few days late in submitting the report, the SDP is to be fined five million kuna, Grbin said, which was why committee members had highlighted the need to amend the legislation.
Dragutin Lesar of the opposition Croatian Labour Party said that strident penalties were a consequence of numerous scandals and lack of transparency in the funding of political parties in the past.
He, however, wondered, whether the same criteria would be applied at the local level in relation to the forthcoming local elections.
