Question Time: Minister Habijan announces investments in prison system and a new AI-assisted project

The 5th session of the Croatian Parliament began with Question Time, with 40 parliamentary questions asked to members of the Government

Minister of Justice, Public Administration and Digital Transformation Damir Habijan answered the question of MP Krunoslav Katičić concerning the anonymisation and public disclosure of judgements and the question of MP Veljko Kajtazi concerning investments in the prison system.
 
First project of the Ministry using artificial intelligence 

Referring to the issue of anonymisation and public disclosure of judgements, the Minister pointed out that the work of the Ministry was meaningful and beneficial for citizens in all segments of its portfolio. He presented briefly the new ANON system and the portal Tražilica odluka sudova Republike Hrvatske (Croatian Case Law Finder), operational as of 1 January this year, where all court judgements - from first-instance judgements to the judgements of all higher courts, including those of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia - are available.

“What I would like to emphasise is that first-instance judgements will be anonymised automatically, with the possibility of additional manual processing by judges and court officials, while the judgements of higher courts and the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia will be anonymised by authorised persons”, explained Minister Habijan, adding that this was the first project which included the use of artificial intelligence.

"The next project in which we will use artificial intelligence is "Predictable judgements". It is a project that will benefit our citizens and the business community, as, on the basis of some keywords and facts entered into the system they will be able to get an answer on their chances to succeed in court", said Minister Habijan.

At the moment, the number of cases in courts is 1,290,000, which is a huge influx of cases, and the aim of the aforementioned project for the search engine is to reduce the number of court cases.

Minister Habijan also mentioned the envisaged follow-up project to upgrade the ANON system so as to enable group download of judgements. 
 
156 new judicial police officers in the prison system 

Due to the migration issue, the number of persons deprived of liberty has increased, with the offence from Article 326 of the Criminal Code - Illegal entry, movement and stay in the Republic of Croatia - accounting for 18% of the total number.

“It is for this reason that we have launched projects for modular prisons with 300 new places for persons deprived of liberty in prisons in Varaždin and Lipovica - Popovača and three large prison areas in the Municipality of Perušić, Sisak-Moslavina County and Osijek-Baranya County”, said Minister Habijan. 

“Another important measure for reducing the overcrowding of Croatian prisons, penitentiaries and reformatories, that we started at the beginning of 2024, was through the Ordinance on the enforcement of pre-trial home detention under electronic monitoring”, he added.

It is a measure currently used by 11 people, and no incidents have been reported during this period. In addition, there are 46 other persons conditionally released from prison who are under electronic monitoring.

‘This is about relieving the system and saving costs. The electronic monitoring service saved the state budget around 400,000 euros, since the daily cost per prisoner is around 50 euros”, said Minister Habijan, praising the work of the Judicial Academy in trainings for the use of electronic monitoring.

"When talking about conditions and improving conditions in Croatian prisons, penitentiaries and institutes, it is not only a matter of persons deprived of liberty, but it is also necessary to keep in mind the judicial police who work in those conditions". 

"What I am particularly pleased about is the fact that we have recently launched a competition for 156 new judicial police officers, and at this moment, with 1584 judicial police officers, we have reached the highest number since 2014. There has been a growing interest because of the increase in salaries in the system, but also because of the improvement of the working conditions of judicial police officers. This is why we are building new prison capacities as well as increasing the budget for the prison system and its staff to 4,000,000 euros”, the Minister concluded.

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