The Supreme Court General Convention on Thursday supported Marin Mrcela's candidacy for Supreme Court president with 29 votes in favour while only four judges supported President Zoran Milanovic's candidate for the post, Radovan Dobronic, state agency Hina reported.

The Supreme Court said that its General Convention, made up of all judges of the country’s highest court, discussed election programs and biographies of all candidates for the Supreme Court president.

Mrcela received the support of 29 judges, and Dobronic of four. The other candidates did not receive any votes. Two Supreme Court judges did not support any of the candidates.

The court said that its opinion would be published on Monday.

Following the third public call for applications for the post of Supreme Court president, which expired on 6 August, applications were submitted by Dobronic, Mrcela, who is the acting president of the Supreme Court, as well as by Zagreb attorney Sime Savic, High Criminal Court judge Lana Peto-Kujundzic, Barbara Gundic, and Daniel Majer, whose application did not meet the requirements.

In mid-August, President Milanovic said that Dobronic, who is known for his ruling in a case concerning Swiss franc-denominated loans, was his candidate for the post, noting that he was relatively well-known to the public, that he was not his friend but that he had followed his work.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said earlier that the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the parliamentary majority had never been, a priori, against any particular candidate. We will see what the programmes will be like and what the relevant parliamentary committee and the Supreme Court General Convention will say about the candidates, Plenkovic said.

The parliamentary Judiciary Committee, whose opinion on candidates for the Supreme Court president is also not binding on the President of the Republic, as the proposer of the Supreme Court president, should hold a session next week.

At the end of June, parliament voted on the appointment of Zagreb Law School professor Zlata Djurdjevic, who was Milanovic’s candidate for president of the Supreme Court, with 37 MPs voting in favour, 81 against and five abstaining.

She was not supported by the Supreme Court General Convention either.

After Mrcela took over the post of Supreme Court president after the term of Supreme Court President Djuro Sessa expired on 20 July, the Supreme Court said that there was no constitutional crisis.

The procedure for the selection of the Supreme Court president is launched by the State Judicial Council, which publishes a call for applications, after which it submits the applications to the President of the Republic, who then asks the Supreme Court General Convention and the parliamentary Judiciary Committee for their opinion.

The Supreme Court president is elected for a period of four years and upon the expiry of their term, they can be elected to the post again, but no one can serve as Supreme Court president for more than two terms.