Against the president of the Civic Initiative ‘I Don’t Want Heating Plant Services’ Domagoj Švegar and the president of the Regional Consumer Protection Organization (ROZP) Željko Tomašić, the Karlovac City Heating Plant has initiated enforcement proceedings due to non-payment of bills.
However, they have never established a contractual relationship with the City Heating Plant, and despite the ongoing mediation process at the Croatian Chamber of Economy.
– According to the Mediation Act, during mediation, the parties are obliged to refrain from mutual claims and disputes. The City Heating Plant has violated this positive provision, and any attempt at mediation is therefore pointless, stated ROZP to the media, which describes the enforcement against only five of many debtors refusing the services of this company as a ‘textbook example of consumer intimidation’.
A month ago, ROZP also proposed a form of mediation, i.e., resolving the ‘Karlovac case in heating’ through the city company Inkasator, and since there has been no response so far, it is evident that the initiative for a peaceful resolution of the dispute has been rejected.
This means, states ROZP’s announcement, that the City Heating Plant Ltd. and the City of Karlovac have decided to continue with aggressive monopolistic dictatorship and disregard the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, Article 49, which guarantees that entrepreneurial and market freedom is the foundation of the economic structure of the Republic of Croatia, and that the State ensures equal legal status for all entrepreneurs in the market, whereby the abuse of monopolistic position is prohibited by law.
The City Heating Plant is not initiating enforcement proposals for monetary assets but for the property of the debtor, and in the ‘Enforcement Decision’, it states that it is made ‘on the basis of a credible document’.
– This is not accurate, as the procedure leading to the enforcement proposal was not conducted according to the General Administrative Procedure Act, at least not in all five cases for which enforcement has been initiated, and the ‘credible documents’ are not in accordance with the Consumer Protection Act or the General Administrative Procedure Act, states the announcement.
Why do state bodies support the flagrant violation of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, and why do volunteers and defenders from the Homeland War, who risked their lives for the freedoms and human rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, allow it to be disrespected, ask ROZP.
According to their interpretation based on the Consumer Protection Act, it is not permissible to deliver and charge for a product or provide a service that the consumer has not ordered in advance. If the trader does so, it is considered a promotional gift from the trader, says Željko Tomašić, and the City Heating Plant is attempting to charge for such a promotional gift through enforcement, and what is even more brazen, is trying to do so through forced enforcement of property. The announcement concludes with the exclamation ‘He lives who dies honestly’.
