The European Commission and the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) will state the incompatibility of Croatian legislation with the conflict of jurisdiction between the State Attorney's Office (DORH) and the EPPO.
After the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions accepted Gong's proposal to launch a petition due to the incompatibility of Croatian legislation with the Regulation on the European Public Prosecutor (EPPO), a decision was made to refer Gong's request to the European Commission for processing.
On 25 March, Gong received a notification from the Chairman of the Committee on Petitions, Bogdan Rzonce, that the European Commission had been requested to conduct a preliminary investigation into Gong's request regarding the conflict of jurisdiction between USKOK and the EPPO, and that the matter had also been referred to the LIBE Committee because it was a judicial issue. The European Commission is expected to announce its decision within the next three months.
In November 2024, the State Attorney General, Ivan Turudić, ruled that USKOK, as a body of DORH, is competent for the investigation into the procurement of medical equipment in which the Minister of Health, Vili Beroš, is a suspect, and not the EPPO, and that decision cannot be questioned.
According to the Act on the Implementation of the EPPO Regulation, it is stipulated that the State Attorney General is the national body responsible for deciding conflicts of jurisdiction between DORH and EPPO. However, the law did not foresee the possibility of the Chief Prosecutor's decision on the conflict of jurisdiction being questioned by one of the Croatian courts as an independent body, for example, the Supreme Court.
Gong believes that only the Supreme Court, as the highest court of the Republic of Croatia, can decide on the conflict of jurisdiction between DORH and EPPO, which would also be in accordance with the EPPO Regulation.
The European Chief Prosecutor, Laura Kovesi, warned that the State Attorney General should not be the one to resolve the conflict of jurisdiction, but the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. As for the Beroš case, it declared it unique and difficult to understand because EPPO was not allowed or had the opportunity to express an opinion on the issue of jurisdiction.
Namely, in the initial letter, which we sent to the Committee on Petitions, we warned that, according to the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, only a “national court or tribunal” can apply to the European Court. Since the State Attorney General is not a judicial body, Turudić could not, even if he had wanted to, apply to the European Court to resolve the jurisdictional conflict between DORH and EPPO. No one can appeal Turudić’s decision to the European Court, because no legal remedy is provided for in the implementing law. This situation would not have occurred if the Supreme Court, as the highest court of the Republic of Croatia, had been granted the power to decide on the jurisdictional conflict.
