Zagreb - In the year drawing to a close, lawmakers spent 103 days in parliament and discussed 373 items on the agenda, adopted 185 laws and parliament Speaker Josip Leko said that parliament had done a proper job this year in fulfilling its constitutional duty.
Presenting these statistics at a press conference on Friday, Leko explained that of the 185 laws adopted, 150 had been done so in fast track procedure. He agreed with reporters that it would be "much more democratic to have bills discussed in two readings."
He underscored that in addition to the 15 plenary sessions of parliament, including 13 regular sessions and 2 extraordinary ones, in 313 days 443 meetings of various working bodies had been conducted and 40 meetings of parliamentary groups.
"Apart from fulfilling its constitutional duty to adopt legislation, it also completed the task of cooperating with the government with regard to European Union (EU) affairs. The government is responsible to present Croatia at EU bodies while it is up to the Sabor to supervise these affairs," Leko said.
"Citizens have varied opinions about the work of parliament, but the average score for the Sabor and MPs is not that good." The introduction of a code of ethics is an attempt to show that MPs care about presenting themselves in a better light, he said in reference to the introduction of a behaviour code, which he announced on Thursday.