A FINAL

LEGAL ACROBICATION OF THE FORMER CHIEF OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT: OMEJEC SIGNED 4 SALARIES ILLEGALLY On his departure from office Author: Slavica LukićPosted: October 23, 2019 9:45 am Jasna Omejec (right), first page of the disputed decision on fees that Omejec signed for herself (left) Jasna Omejec (right), first page of the disputed decision on fees that Omejec signed for herself (left) Matea Petrović / CROPIX Facebook Twitter Messenger E-mail RELATED NEWS Miroslav Separovic MIROSLAV ŠEPAROVIĆ HEAD OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT IN A LARGE INTERVIEW FOR THE MORNING 'The President of the Supreme Court should head the Commission for Conflict of Interest' CONFLICT OF INTEREST OMEJEC 'I have not yet received a verdict, but it is unacceptable to me that journalists before me have information about the case in which I am a party to the proceedings' The High Administrative Court also ruled in a final judgment - former President of the Constitutional Court Jasna Omejec illegally received compensation in the amount of her official salary after leaving the Constitutional Court, which she also awarded and signed herself. The verdict was published on the case law portal and we have a copy of it. The High Administrative Court thus confirmed the decision of the Commission for Deciding on Conflict of Interest made two years ago, during the mandate of Dalija Orešković . According to the decision of the Commission, Jasna Omejec, whose term of office as judge and president of the Constitutional Court expired on June 6, 2016, was not entitled to six months' full salary as president of the Constitutional Court because she had a contract to return to her previous job. place at the Zagreb Faculty of Law. Only those officials who are not guaranteed a return to their previous post after the expiration of their term of office are entitled to six months' full official salary plus six months of that salary. According to the final verdict, Omejec was entitled to compensation in the amount of the official salary for a maximum of two months after leaving the Constitutional Court, ie no later than August 7, 2016, until the technical details of her return to her old job at the university are resolved. . The four monthly allowances she received from August 7 to December 1, 2016, she received illegally. The final verdict of the High Administrative Court passed by a three-member panel, composed of Boris Markovic as president and judges Mirjana Juricic and Blansa Turic as members, failed the last attempt of the former president of the Constitutional Court Omejec to annul the unpleasant decision of the Conflict of Interest Commission. When it made that decision in September 2017, the Commission could no longer fine Omejec because more than a year had passed since she left the head of the Constitutional Court, but the decision, like all others, was made public. Her appeal was denied Although not financially punished, Omejec made an extraordinary effort to overturn the Commission's decision in court. First, she sent a 30-page lawsuit to the first-instance Administrative Court in Zagreb against the Commission's decision, accusing the body of "misinterpreting" the law and "seizing power". After the Zagreb Administrative Court rejected her lawsuit, she wrote an extensive appeal to the High Administrative Court alleging that the first-instance court had erred in both substantive and procedural law and had failed to comment on as many as seven objections in her lawsuit. At a recent session, however, the High Administrative Court rejected her appeal, and the arguments he cited in his final judgment do not flatter the former president of the Constitutional Court and university professor of administrative law at all. The court, referring to the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and the decisions of the Constitutional Court in which the issue of reasoning of court judgments is considered, pointed out that the first instance court "reasoned sufficiently and reasonably" and responded to its objections. In its verdict, the High Administrative Court reminds Jasna Omejec that state officials are granted two special rights after returning to office - return to their previous jobs or the right to receive a full official salary for six months if they do not work and the next six months. The Court recalls, however, that officials must choose one of these two rights and must not use both cumulatively. "The legal acrobatics by which the plaintiff (Omejec, op. Cit.) Tries to prove the correctness of her thesis on the right to accumulate rights, ie the right to a salary of 6 plus 6 and the right to return to work with the former employer, is astonishing," the verdict reads. And the legal acrobatics of Jasna Omejec, it is pointed out in the verdict, consists in the fact that she, justifying her actions, gives the legal norm a meaning that the legislator did not intend for it, and which corresponds to itself. Such, the court further warns, is not a method of interpretation of a legal norm recognized in theory or legal practice and "represents an interpretation that does not contribute to the security of the legal order or the rule of law as one of the fundamental constitutional principles." Signed the last day Referring to the accusation of “robbery of authority” that Omejec filed in the appeal against the Commission, the High Administrative Court reminds that on the last day of her term in the Constitutional Court, June 6, Omejec signed a decision granting her the right to six months of full official salary. In this connection, the High Administrative Court wrote: "In exercising the constitutional principle of legality, citizens are allowed everything that is not prohibited by law, but state bodies are allowed only what is explicitly prescribed by law. In this context, no law in the Republic of Croatia prescribes that the head of the body / official recognizes a right to himself / herself within a few hours from the submitted request. In addition, the basic principle of good justice dictates that no one can be a judge in his own case (nemo iudex in causa sua) ”. Signing a decision on the right to six plus six is ​​emphasized in the final judgment, even if it is not illegal, it is unethical to say the least. Based on the obtained documents, the High Administrative Court stated that Jasna Omejec did not ask the Faculty of Law in Zagreb to return to work within a month of the termination of the mandate of the President of the Constitutional Court in June 2016, when her term at the Constitutional Court expired. as it was written in her contract. Contrary to the agreement, she requested that she return to the Faculty of Law within six months of the termination of her duties as President of the Constitutional Court, which was then readily approved by the then Dean of the Faculty of Law, Dubravka Hrabar . Otherwise, this verdict is final and cannot be appealed. The only extraordinary remedy available to Jasna Omejec is to file a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court