Croatian President Ivo Josipovic has said that he recommends the non-adoption of the government-sponsored bill to declare certain legal acts of the former Yugoslav People's Army, the former Yugoslavia and Serbia null and void, calling for finding a consensual solution, as he believes that the bill will not accomplish its purpose.
"I think that the bill is not good that that the best way is not to adopt the law. The interests of Croatia, primarily of our war veterans, should be ensured through a mutual agreement with Serbia," Josipovic said in his interview in the Croatian Television's prime time news programme on Saturday evening.
The president urged the maintenance of the mechanism agreed upon by the chief state prosecutors from Croatia and Serbia rather than eliminating it by "a dysfunctional law", and added that this mechanism proved good in the case of war veteran Tihomir Purda and the wartime and current head of the Vukovar Hospital, Vesna Bosanac.
Josipovic said that problem with the government-sponsored bill lay in the fact that the draft was not completely in the spirit of international law as universal jurisdiction existed.
The president said that many problems would be removed with an agreement with Serbia which would regulate the jurisdiction according to the place of residence.
He said that it was pity that he and Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor had not been informed about war crimes indictments sent from Serbia on the same day when they arrived at the Croatian Justice Ministry, as, he said, this was not only a legal matter but also a political issue of top importance regarding the protection of Croatian citizens, the functioning of the rule of law and the relations in the region.
