15 MARTINDALE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE Anti-corruption reforms cannot make progress without investing in the civil service. Comparative research shows successful anti-corruption efforts depend on professionals who are adequately paid and whose career prospects depend on performance, not patronage (Sabir et al., 2019). Slovenia has combined integrity regulation with gradual improvements to judicial and prosecutorial wages and protections for judges and prosecutors facing pressure (OECD, 2025). In Croatia, European and regional reports endorse the legal framework, while noting remaining gaps and constraints (European Commission, 2025a; Group of States Against Corruption, 2014). Better wages, stronger training, and competitive recruitment would reduce temptation and rebuild professional pride. Without such investment, even well-designed enforcement bodies risk overworking staff, who become vulnerable to burnout and capture (Hall, 2022). Finally, Croatia can draw inspiration from Bulgaria’s recent anti-corruption protests, while recognizing key differences. Bulgaria combines widespread corruption with extremely high public awareness of it, which culminated in large scale protests in 2020– 2021 and again in 2025 that helped topple governments accused of state capture and oligarchic influence (Kirby, 2025). Young Bulgarians used social media, street demonstrations, and legal advocacy to force the resignation of leaders they saw as symbols of entrenched corruption (Bulgarian Government Resigns…, 2025). Croatia differs, with high perceived corruption despite low reported experience of everyday bribery (European Commission, 2025b). Nevertheless, the psychological dynamic is similar. If most Croatians already believe the system is corrupt and resistant to change, that sentiment can create constructive civic pressure for reforms, as it did in Bulgaria. Bulgaria’s experience suggests that widespread cynicism can become a catalyst for democratic renewal, not just empty criticism. Protest movements would need concrete institutional demands and grounding in the broader EU rule of law framework (Kirby, 2025). Croatia’s path forward depends on combining the technical reforms, such as asset audits, e-Case transparency, and notarial offloading, with institutional and social reforms, including a protected USKOK, a professional civil service, empowered civilian oversight, and a public willing to demand more. None of these measures alone will end the culture of veze, but together they can narrow the perception gap, demonstrate that elites are no longer above the law, and slowly restore the belief that there is a reason to seek justice. Limitations and the future A critical limitation of this study is its reliance on self-reported and perception-based data that measure the climate of corruption rather than its objective frequency. Such public sentiment indicators are susceptible to perceptual lag because citizens may continue to report high corruption based on historical scandals like the Mamić case, even long after reforms start to work. Likewise, because this is a meta-case study relying on existing data, conclusions should be interpreted with caution given the subjective nature and potential biases of the original sources. Looking ahead, this gap suggests that Croatia’s future challenge is legislative as well as psychological. If the judiciary continues to be seen as a closed circle, no amount of digital transparency or EU compliance will restore trust. Future institutional success will likely depend on moving beyond formal compliance and toward transparency that directly counters the narrative of a captured state. Conclusion The Croatian judiciary today stands at the intersection of history, perception, and institutional design. Decades of experience have taught citizens that law is applied selectively when powerful actors are involved, through the Yugoslav veze system, wartime impunity, and the patronage privatization of the 1990s. EU reforms have modernized statutes and created new institutional bodies; nonetheless, Croatians remain convinced that courts exist primarily to protect elites versus ordinary people. As a result, mistrust in government institutions now operates as a form of negative capital that weakens democratic performance even as formal rules have improved. The cases examined in this article show how the public interprets different forms of judicial malpractice. Each case—Mamić’s grand corruption, Šupe’s retail bribery, and the conflict of interest in Ramljak v. Croatia—exposes distinct institutional failures: transactional relationships with judges, local courts vulnerable to envelopes of cash, and structural insider advantages of a supposedly impartial tribunal. Together, they reinforce the narrative that the legal system is a private club in which connections, rather than rights, decide outcomes. Because these scandals are highly visible, they overshadow routine, law-abiding judicial work, fueling the hyperbolized perception that corruption is universal. At a systemic level, Croatia occupies a distinctive position within the EU because public perceptions of corruption are extraordinarily high, while self-reported bribery is relatively low. This gap has concrete consequences. Politically, it lowers confidence
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