More than two years ago, an article titled ‘Smokvica has an excess of staff, but not the capacity to manage‘ was published in ‘Pravda’. It described how the local authority adopted the Internal Order Regulation of the Unified Administrative Department contrary to the law, which is why it was annulled by the High Administrative Court (VUS). Now a reader informs us that for the second time after the ruling, the municipal mayor is changing the Regulation, but in a way that still contradicts the VUS ruling.
I will briefly remind you: Smokvica, a municipality on Korčula, adopted a Regulation in March 2017 that stipulated that the senior officer for local self-government, European funds, and public procurement would work full-time. However, in November of the same year, the Regulation was amended for some reason, and it stated that the working hours of that officer were shortened ‘although, according to the applicant’s opinion, there is no justification for that. Moreover, from the proposed budget of the Municipality for 2018 with projections for 2019 and 2020, it follows that the tasks of that position will not decrease but increase.’ The applicant was Petra Tomašić (who has now contacted me and sent court documentation), and the municipal mayor who signed those documents was Kuzma Tomašić.
Responsibility Question
Although VUS requested two years ago that a document be submitted stating that consultation with the Workers’ Council was conducted in accordance with Article 150 of the Labor Law when drafting the Regulation, it was not submitted from the Municipality of Smokvica – because the consultation was not held. For that trivial reason, the Regulation was annulled, and VUS did not even want to consider whether the shortening of the officer’s time was justified or not. We at Lider also did not want to enter into a discussion about the (un)justified shortening of time because we are not familiar with the real reasons for such a decision, nor do we exclude the possibility that the mayor and the officer are in a conflict of another nature. We only noted that Mayor Tomašić should have raised the question of responsibility for those who proposed such a decision to him contrary to procedure, but also his own responsibility because, if nothing else, the costs of that court procedure will be borne by the taxpayers from Smokvica.
Now Petra Tomašić writes to us that Mayor Tomašić adopted a new regulation after the VUS ruling. The only change was that instead of shortening the position of the mentioned officer, that position is now being abolished. But again, there was no consultation with the Workers’ Council, and the mistake was also made because the Regulation came into force the day after its publication in the Official Gazette of the Municipality of Smokvica, although according to the Law on Local and Regional Self-Government, it could not take effect earlier than eight days after the official publication. Thus, on the new lawsuit of Petra Tomašić, VUS annulled that regulation on May 25 last year for the same reason. Unfortunately, this saga is not over because after that ruling, Mayor Tomašić adopted a third Regulation. You guess it, he again made the same illegalities as in the first and second cases, so Petra Tomašić again submitted a ‘request for the assessment of the legality of that general act to the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia, about which VUS has not yet decided.’ She says she has no doubt what its ruling will be.
