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Split Judge Earns Doctorate on Corruption: Bribery Most Prevalent in Judiciary, Police, and Healthcare

Judge Mijo Galijot of the Criminal Department of the Municipal Court in Split and Deputy President of the State Judicial Council (DSV) defended his doctoral dissertation titled ‘Corruption: Active Bribery in the Croatian Judicial System and Practice’ at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb, reports T-portal.

>>>94 percent of Croats believe that corruption is widespread in the country

Bribes are most often given for resolving court or administrative cases (30.15 percent), according to his data, followed by attempts to avoid misdemeanor liability (20.1 percent), favoritism in public procurement (16.08 percent), passing various exams (15.08 percent), expediting the resolution of court or administrative cases (3.08 percent), unauthorized acquisition of confidential or official information (3.02 percent), avoiding criminal liability (1.51 percent), and for other purposes in 11.06 percent of cases – among which are match-fixing, avoiding inspection oversight, political corruption in local government, or illegal border crossing.

As much as 81 percent of cases relate to bribery in the sectors of police, higher education, healthcare, and pension insurance, while only 2.02 percent pertain to the judiciary, writes Galijot.

>>>They are in a conflict of interest and are not accountable to anyone

Interestingly, the data shows that most bribes are given by individuals with a secondary education (57.31 percent of cases), and those with higher education (23.39 percent), while during the analyzed period, no individual without education was convicted for giving bribes.

Most often, besides money, bribes are paid with lambs, pastries, vouchers, and performing construction work at weekend homes, writes Slobodna.

Punishment for these criminal acts is generally close to or below the legal minimum, with conditional sentences in as many as 76 percent of cases.

>>>Bribery is a strange fruit

Additionally, Judge Galijot has published an interesting study (download pdf) on bribery in medieval and modern law.