When Maja Đerek realized the company where she worked wasn’t collecting rental fees for some of its business spaces, she didn’t know the story would unravel into a national affair revealing a system of widespread clientelism, abuse of position and trading in influence involving highly positioned politicians. The affair implicated public figures such as the Minister of Defense and a brother of the former vice president of the Parliament.
The high profiled case of Državne Nekretnine, which manages state property, turned Đerek into the best-known whistleblower in recent Croatian history. However, she believes her case is a cautionary tale rather than an encouragement for people to point out irregularities.
Đerek lost her job in September 2020. In 2023, a regional court ruled that she didn’t have the status of whistleblower because of a procedural error she committed when submitting the complaint. In the meantime, she is still waiting for her criminal complaint against her former company to be processed. “My story is proof that the system will not protect you. The system itself demotivates people,” she believes. Recently announced change to the criminal code could make the life of the whistleblowers in the country even more difficult.
Law that works better on paper
Whistleblower protection in Croatia has come a long way since Ankica Lepej, a bank clerk and possibly the best-known whistleblower in the history of the country, revealed the wife of then-President Franjo Tuđman held undisclosed funds in her bank account in 1998. Lepej was fired from her job, questioned by the police and ostracized. She died in January 2022; in October 2022 a promenade in the Gajnice neighborhood of Zagreb, where she lived her entire life, would be named after her.
An EU member since 2013, Croatia adopted the EU regulations on whistleblower protection into national law in 2022. While the new legislation introduced mechanisms that should better protect whistleblowers, some still face intimidation, repercussions and long legal battles.
Croatia Ombudswoman Tena Šimonović Einwalter says she regrets that some of her office’s proposals didn’t make it to the legislative text and believes some of its provisions are lax. “If you look at the financial penalties, I am not sure they are high enough for the employees that have substantial incomes. Currently, the highest fine is just above 6600 euros,” she says.
At the same time, whistleblowers could find themselves in potential financial troubles in case they become entangled in a court case. The legal support system is dependent on one’s financial status, meaning it is free for people living in a low-income households (earning less than 441 euros a month per person). “If people knew they could get free legal support no matter what their current financial status is, they might be encouraged to report irregularities without fear that doing the right thing would financially crush them,” explains Šimonović Einwalter.
Adriana Cvrtila shares this point of view. Crvtila is a whistleblower herself. A former head of the waste management company EKO Moslavina, she recorded how the mayor of her town and other local councilors exerted pressure on her to hire certain people. Cvrtila took the recordings to the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK). She also reported the irregularities to the ombudswoman and spoke with journalists. The media prominently covered her story, but she still ended up getting fired. Her husband is now the only breadwinner in the family, and Cvrtila is involved in multiple court cases.
“I am not sure what will come out of it, and I have no financial support [for legal expenses ], since my husband still works. At the same time, I am stigmatized in Kutina, where I live, because I pointed out irregularities,” she says. Crvtila has started the non-profit group Pomak, which advocates for establishing a fund for whistleblowers that would support their legal fees and help them if they lose their jobs.
“Today, we have the authority to protect the person reporting the irregularities in case they might be exposed to retaliation,” says Šimonović Einwalter. Reprisals can take the form of dismissal or suspension from work, salary reduction, a change of place of work or working hours, intimidation, harassment or isolation. However, it is up to the whistleblower to prove the repercussions are motivated by their report, and not by other factors. The Ombudswoman can start an inquiry but cannot actually prevent or reverse somebody losing their job.
Furthermore, reporting irregularities, and everything that follows, takes a toll on one’s mental health. The Ombudswoman regrets that the lawmakers didn’t decide to secure full psychosocial help, but rather so-called emotional support. The regulation defining the exact scope and type of support was passed only in October 2023, a year later than planned. “Those people can really use help, be it with the issues they might encounter after the reporting, or even before – they need encouragement, sometimes even a confirmation that they are doing the right thing,” she says.
Who will want to come forward anyway?
Encouraging people to come forward might become more complicated in Croatia if a recently proposed law dubbed by the media “Lex A.P.” is passed.
In February 2023 Prime Minister Andrej Plenković announced the changes to the Criminal Code that would criminalize leaks from criminal investigations in the public sphere. The announcement followed a leak of the correspondence by then-Funds and Regional Development Minister Gabrijela Žalac about software whose cost she allegedly inflated. In the messages, she makes a mention of a certain “A.P.”, which resulted in a situation embarrassing for Plenković. In September 2023 the anti-leaks law, which envisages punishment of up to three years in prison, was submitted to a public consultation, and instantly alarmed journalists and law practitioners.
Today, if one decides to blow the whistle in Croatia, they have three channels. First is the internal reporting channel, where the person submits the report to the person of confidence appointed by the employer. This is required for companies with more than 50 employees and those working in the field of health, financial services, climate and protection of the environment, consumer protection, traffic security or food security. Under the 2022 law, it is now possible to submit a report directly to the Ombudswoman’s office. Reports to the office increased 60 percent in 2022 over the year before.
Going to the media is seen as a mechanism to be used only exceptionally, namely when a person has a justified reason to believe that the irregularity could be an imminent threat to the public interest or if there could be a risk of retaliation if they submit it through other channels.
For Đerek, the media can be a valuable ally. “I went to the press because I realized that my case could otherwise stay in somebody’s drawer. I wrote to a couple of investigative journalists, which got the ball rolling. They also looked for further documents, further proof. Without the media, the whole story would have stayed secret,” she believes.
For Hrvoje Zovko, the president of the Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND), the anti-leaks legislation represents in this regard a government’s attack on the journalistic profession and public interest. “The proposed bill doesn’t include any protective clauses for journalists, and will dissuade potential sources from talking to them,” he says.
Since the proposed law would prohibit the public disclosure of any relevant information regarding the proceedings before the indictment, it could endanger the relationship between the media and all the sources, whistleblowers included.
“If the criminal proceedings were to start on the basis of the whistleblower’s report, the whistleblower would become a witness. Both the whistleblower and the journalist to whom he would pass on any information about the case would be in trouble,” says Igor Martinović, associate professor at the Faculty of Law in Rijeka, Croatia. Although it is unsure how the new legislation would interact with the Act on the Whistleblowers, Martinović believes that “the atmosphere of fear would surely increase among potential whistleblowers and journalists.”
The “anti-leak” legislation it is yet to be debated in the Parliament ahead of the super election year. In 2024, Croatian citizens will vote in the European, parliamentary, and presidential elections. For Đerek, who has created a non-profit group fighting for transparency and protection of whistleblowers, RAZVOJ, a general opposition to the law is needed. “We’ve come a long way for somebody to try to shut us up in 2023!” she says.
