Zagreb - The State Attorney's Office employed 7% more officials last year than in 2024, but its age structure remains a concern and the pool of new recruits is getting smaller, Attorney-General Ivan Turudić told parliament on Wednesday.
"There are 7% more officials across all prosecutorial offices, but I have to express concern about the future. I fear the pool from which we draw new deputy state attorneys is getting shallower and shallower," Turudić said while presenting the State Attorney's Office's 2025 report.
"People do not want to work in prosecutorial offices or courts. They are moving to more lucrative positions and jobs with less responsibility because, I dare say, they also involve less work," he added.
With many employees approaching retirement, Turudić warned that the shortage of younger staff could cause major problems in the coming years.
"The job is not easy and praise is very rare; mostly there are complaints and criticism," he said.
As for caseload statistics, Turudić said the State Attorney's Office's case-resolution rate was 104% in 2025. The number of cases resolved per official had increased, the time needed to resolve cases had fallen and the backlog had been reduced from around 20% to 16.4%, he said.
We Can! MP Jelena Miloš asked whether prosecutorial actions had prevented institutions from acting sooner to remediate the illegal waste site in Gospić.
"Special investigative measures began in September 2023. Surely we were not supposed to announce that we were conducting special investigative measures? They lasted about a year and involved around ten people, after which decisions were issued to open an investigation, followed by two extensions of the investigation," Turudić said.
Several months then followed during which remediation could not proceed because the waste was being sampled to determine whether it was toxic, he added.
"That was not up to the State Attorney's Office, but the bodies conducting the sampling to determine whether the waste was toxic," Turudić said.
SDP MP Mirela Ahmetović welcomed the publication of expert findings on the Gospić waste case, saying it was in the public interest. She asked whether the State Attorney's Office's findings should be subject to review or interpretation by the government's Scientific Council providing support in the waste remediation process, and whom the public should trust.
"Establishing that council was a political decision; I have nothing to do with it. Whom the public trusts is their business," Turudić replied.
Asked by HDZ MP Josip Borić whether the State Attorney's Office faced pressure from interest groups or other actors, Turudić said it was an independent judicial body.
"There are pressures every day, but they have no impact on our work," he said.
Borić criticised Bridge MP Nikola Grmoja over his statement that "the judiciary should be destroyed", saying the opposition had spent a decade attacking state institutions and their independence and was now even calling for their destruction.
Grmoja: Croatian judiciary should be dismantled and rebuilt
"Yes, I will repeat it - I believe the Croatian judiciary should be destroyed to its foundations and rebuilt from scratch. You in the HDZ have contributed to a judiciary in which the big fish are never held accountable," Grmoja said.
"I hope people heard that," Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković said. "I have to comment because I am stunned that someone sitting here as an MP is calling for the destruction of the Croatian judiciary."
SDP MP Tonči Restović agreed that some of Grmoja's statements "go beyond the bounds", but said Jandroković, as an HDZ member who had followed politics for years, knew that the HDZ had "destroyed the judiciary in the 1990s" and should therefore be more cautious in making such strong remarks.
"So, if I understood you correctly, the judiciary was in excellent shape until 1990. You have now said everything about yourself and your views on what it was like before 1990," Jandroković replied.
"(MP Restović) mentioned HDZ members who 'destroyed the judiciary' in the 1990s," SDP MP Saša Đujić said. "I don't know where you see yourself in that. You may have destroyed democratic debate in parliament, but you did not destroy the judiciary."
Responding to objections from other SDP MPs about his comments on parliamentary speeches, Jandroković said he only commented when he was directly addressed.
"That doesn't happen to you because your HDZ colleagues respect the presiding officers," he told Deputy Speaker Sabina Glasovac of the SDP.
Regarding the recent femicide in Slatina, SDSS MP Dragana Jeckov asked how effective precautionary measures were.
Turudić said the Interior Ministry was responsible for monitoring such measures, agreeing that the number of violations was too high.