The non-governmental election-monitoring organisation GONG on Saturday welcomed the opinion of the Constitutional Court that war crimes convict Branimir Glavas could not head the slates of the regional HDSSB party in the forthcoming parliamentary election.
The State Election Commission (DIP) said on Thursday that Glavas could head the HDSSB's slates but could not be a candidate, noting that there was no explicit prohibition to that effect under the law on the election of members of the Croatian Parliament.
The law says that any person sentenced to an unconditional prison term of more than six months cannot be a member of Parliament or a candidate for that position.
"The Constitutional Court has rejected such interpretation by the DIP, saying that although no such prohibition is provided for in electoral legislation it is contained in the so-called objective order of values which forms an integral part of the Constitution," Djordje Gardasevic, a member of the GONG Council and constitutional law professor at the Zagreb Law School, told reporters.
When asked about the possible outcome of this case, Gardasevic mentioned the possibility of an election dispute with the Constitutional Court as the final arbiter. "Since the court said what it thought, then that's it," he concluded.
Branimir Glavas, a former member of Parliament, is serving an eight-year prison term in Bosnia and Herzegovina for his role in war crimes committed against Serb civilians in Croatia in the early 1990s.
