The memorandum signed by the two countries on the LB savers issue in March is a treaty under international law and as such trumps national law, the professor at the Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences said on Tuesday.

Responding to the decision of a court in Zagreb to ignore a provision in the memorandum envisaging the staying of court proceedings regarding the LB savers issue in Croatia, Brglez said that "national law cannot be a reason for failing to implement international commitments".

"Treaties are binding on countries under conditions set in national law, whereby transposing such commitments into national law is the responsibility of the signatory," the professor said.

"International law is an independent legal order that is binding based on its provisions. Arguing that something cannot be implemented due to national law is no excuse for implementing commitments stemming from international law."

Assessing that Slovenia has to react to the court proceedings in Croatia, Brglez said that it should consider turning to legal proceedings at the EU level. "The EU legal order ascribes the same importance to international law as individual countries."

He said Croatian legislation was clear in putting international treaties above national legislation, which made the issue one of Croatia's failure to implement its international commitments.

The comments come after Croatian media reported at the weekend that a judge at the Zagreb Municipal Court decided to resume proceedings in a lawsuit by Croatian commercial bank Privredna banka Zagreb (PBZ) against the defunct LB bank and its successor NLB, Slovenia's largest bank, despite the provision in the memorandum.

Judge Nikola Raguz argued that the court does not consider the memorandum to be an international treaty which would take precedence over Croatian national law because the agreement has not been ratified in the Croatian parliament or published in the country's official journal.

Moreover, a court document obtained by the STA indicates that the judge based his argument on the absence of an official document whereby the Croatian government would request stay of the proceedings as it committed in the memorandum signed in Mokrice on 11 March.

Slovenia has responded to the news by saying that it would ignore any ruling of a Croatian court on the matter because it would run contrary to the memorandum signed by the two countries.

"Such rulings would therefore go against the Slovenian legal order," the Slovenian Embassy in Zagreb said on Tuesday, announcing that it would no longer monitor legal proceedings regarding the LB savers issue in Croatia.