The main
human rights problems in
The adoption of new basic media laws gave
media outlets more freedom and provided more pluralism. On the negative side, changes to the Penal Code were
adopted criminalizing defamation and so violating international standards.
However, the
The judicial
system functioned inadequately and slowly—particularly the execution of
sentences—resulting in an enormous backlog of cases.
The
situation regarding religious freedoms improved but remained unsatisfactory in
2003. The
Roman Catholic Church as the most significant religious community in the
country retained a privileged status.
The level of
intolerance slightly increased due to the activities of some individuals,
groups and organizations. Racial intolerance was promoted mainly by groups of
skinheads.
In
2003 the government adopted several legal documents regarding the
implementation of the return process of refugees and IDPs, repossession of
property and reconstruction of property destroyed during the military conflict.
Some provisions of the new legislation were discriminatory provisions. The
process of return of occupied private property continued but at a very slow
pace.
The Croatian Helsinki
Committee (CHC) received numerous reports of violations of labor rights and
became involved once more in activities concerning health protection, and
protection of the environment and a number of civil organizations were involved
in sending complaints to the competent bodies on these issues.
The adoption
of new basic media laws gave press outlets more freedom. A new news program on
the private TV Nova (with national concessions) allowed for more pluralism and
the state television, HRT, was gradually transforming itself into a public TV broadcaster.
Print media were mostly under private ownership except for Slobodna Dalmacija and Vjesnik, which were
state-owned and waiting to be privatized.
Pluralism of the media gave individuals a better insight
into social affairs and access to government sources of information was made
easier for all journalists following the adoption of the Freedom of Information
Act on 15 October. Its passage was a result of lobbying by an NGO coalition led
by the CHC.
Protecting individuals from reporters intruding on their
privacy and providing for a right to correction and publication of denials
became increasingly problematic. Pressure by media owners on editors to write
more sensational tabloid-genre pieces rather than using serious and reliable
sources was also increasing due to the lucrative revenue involved. There was a
rise in cases brought by journalists trying to protect their professional and
material rights, which were violated by employers/media owners.
Positive changes in the relations between the government
and the media resulted in the adoption of new basic media laws. Implementation
of these laws, however, was challenged in practice. NGOs (e.g. the CHC,
Journalists’ Association) and the media were for the very first time given the
opportunity to participate in drafting the laws by submitting suggestions and
demands. Cases of government interference in the media seemed to be decreasing,
while pressure by other centers of power (especially corporate business
lobbies) was getting stronger.
The main changes to the new
HRT law, which was passed in February, concerned the composition of a public
surveillance body and managerial system governing the HRT. The CHC’s Council
for the Media and the Association of Croatian Journalists participated in the
drafting of the new HRT law (as well as in other basic media laws) as members
of a joint working group within the Ministry of Culture. Some of their
proposals were embodied in the text of the law. However, the Council for the Media
proposal regarding composition of the HRT Council was not accepted: it had
suggested that the old composition should be retained, i.e., on third of
members elected directly by NGOs.
The weakest point was the parliament’s hesitation in
naming the members of the HRT Council. It took almost six months for parliament
to appoint the new HRT council members and after two attempts they were still
unable to start working due to the lack of quorum.
At
the end of 2002, the CHC’s Council for the
Media concluded a research on the topic.
The main finding, in comparison with the situation at the end of 1999
(when the ruling party was Franjo Tudjman’s Croatian Democratic Community, HDZ)
was that the influence of the government and ruling coalition had decreased
significantly and that the HRT was no longer a tool of government and parties
in power. At the same time the HRT was still far from serving the public
interest. Although both the ruling parties and the opposition (especially HDZ)
accused HRT of being biased, an independent scientific study pointed to a
slight bias in favor of the HDZ and similar ideology.
The CHC
worked actively in drafting proposals to amend the Law on Telecommunications
and succeeded in dividing the law into two separate laws— the Law on Electronic
Media and Law on Telecommunications. At the end of July parliament adopted the
Law on Electronic Media, making regulations on broadcasting more transparent
and detailed, prohibiting media concentration and monopolies, granting national
concessions for TV and radio broadcast, and introducing an independent body—the
Council for the Electronic Media—in charge of monitoring implementation of the
law on behalf of the public.
After more than one year of public debate on the first
version of the new Media Law during which interested parties, especially
journalist organizations and the CHC’s Council for the Media were given an
opportunity to significantly influence the final version, the new Media Law was
adopted at the beginning of October. This text replaced the Public Information
Act in its entirety. The most important changes were stipulations on the right
to correction and denial in favor of the injured party as well as a provision
for shorter court procedures. The law considerably strengthened the position of
journalists, guaranteeing the right to quit a job with fair severance if the
publisher/employer changes his/her program conception.
Until 2003,
In
February, the NGO coalition, including the CHC, acted publicly for the
declaration on the “public right to know,” urging the government to put this
topic on the political agenda, and offering help to civil society
representatives. The NGO coalition engaged independent law experts to draft a
FOIA proposal and conducted several expert discussions on the draft law, as well
as provided for international expertise.
The
first efforts to campaign for the drafting and adoption of an FOIA were carried
out successfully by the CHC and its 16 NGO coalition partners. On 15 October
parliament voted for the FOIA, including some amendments proposed by the NGO
coalition partners. This was the first case in
However,
the adopted version of the FOIA lacked, for example, basic provisions on access
to information in cases when that information is officially classified but of
public interest.
New changes to the Penal Code
regarding slander and offence, introduced by the Ministry of Justice, provoked
much public criticism. The CHC’s Council for the Media wrote an open letter to
the prime minister and president of the parliament criticizing the changes and
urging for the decriminalization of free speech.
Together
with the Croatian Journalists Association, the CHC regretted the fact that NGOs
had not been directly involved in drafting the legislation, Further, they asked
the Ministry of Justice to withdraw those provisions which were not in line
with international law. These concerned particularly proposals regarding defamation
and libel. The suggestion to drop criminal charges for harming the respect of
the president (proposed by the president himself, too) was accepted. The
suggestion to keep article 203 in the existing Penal Code, which favored
journalists involved in libel suits and at least not to worsen their defense—if
not decriminalize public speech in general—was not adopted. Regrettably,
however, in July parliament passed amendments to the Penal Code, criminalizing
defamation as well as dissemination of “false and disturbing rumors.” According
to the amendments, defamation and insult were to be punished even with
imprisonment. Moreover, parliament failed to accept the proposal not to punish
civil servants for the disclosure of information of public interest.
The CHC filed a request to the president of the
Parliamentary Board for Information and the Media and urged the body not to
adopt the defamation order, which would harm journalistic and media freedoms.
The CHC also wrote an open letter to the prime minister and president of the
parliament, urging them to amend disputed article 203 before the law would come
into force in December.
Additionally, in August the CHC filed a request to the
The CHC, with the financial
support of the OSCE Mission to
Three weeks before the start
of the election campaign there were only a few cases of hate speech, while so
called state/nation building themes slowly disappeared. Results showed a
balanced coverage of both the ruling and opposition parties and this balanced
coverage continued during the election period itself.
One controversial issue,
however, was the rules issued by parliament during the pre-election period. The parties in parliament imposed their own
rules on private TV broadcasters regarding coverage of the election campaign
and party presentation in the media. Since the number of political parties and
candidates for the posts in parliament was enormous (89 parties and 5,245
candidates) it was impossible to give each candidate equal time for
presentation not only on HRT but especially on private commercial network (TV
Nova and OTV). TV Nova filed a complaint before the
Acting on the complaints brought by TV Nova and the CHC,
parliament watered down its first version of the rules governing the coverage
of election campaigns: TV Nova refused to obey the rules but did no face
sanctions.
The functioning of the Croatian judicial system remained a serious problem
throughout 2003. In the most serious cases the delays in some branches of the system were so long as to undermine the
rule of law. The approximately 1,400,000 backlog of pending
cases (a high percentage of which dealt with the failure to enforce court
rulings) was still not properly dealt with. Also, the judiciary continued to
lack suitably qualified staff and an appropriate professional training
system.
The general public in
Acknowledging fundamental problems in the functioning of
the judiciary, the government adopted a green paper in November 2002 on the
reform of the judicial system. It was followed up in June 2003 by an
operational plan for its implementation. The reform plan gave a brief outline
of the current situation in the Croatian judiciary. Any true judicial reform,
however, requires changes in mentality not only on the part of legal
professionals, but also of those seeking justice through the courts, stated the
CHC. Judicial reform must be coordinated with the reform of other branches of
state authority (including police and other administrative bodies) responsible
for implementation of the law. The need for such coordinated reform was
demonstrated by the 13 November 2003 judgment by the European Court of Human
Rights (ECtHR) in the case of Napijalo v.
Croatia, which found that Croatia had violated two provisions of the
European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) at least in part due to the fact
that “there was no co-operation or co-ordination both within the police and
between the police and the judicial authorities.”
The failure to carry out court
decisions presented a serious problem for the administration of justice and
contributed to the judicial backlog. The
Part of the efforts to diminish the backlog included the
adoption of amendments to the Law on Civil Procedure, with provisions that were
intended to expedite procedures. Furthermore, parliament adopted amendments to
the Law on Inheritance and the Law on Mediation to speed up proceedings.
It
was generally assumed that all lawyers who had graduated from universities in
the former Yugoslavia after 1945 had considerable gaps in their education, the
most important being the absence of any awareness of the rule of law, separation
of powers and human rights. Generations of lawyers were trained without the
necessary abilities to interpret and apply international human rights law. In
view of this, the CHC in cooperation with regional partner organizations,
organized the second phase of training programs on the project “Retraining
Lawyers in Transition Countries of South East Europe.” Besides providing the
trainees with necessary knowledge and skills in these fields, it was of great
importance to familiarize the participants with the jurisprudence and actual
practice in their countries and abroad, as well as with the decisions of the
ECtHR and supervisory bodies of the international human rights treaties.
Freedom of Religion
The
situation regarding religious freedom had improved but remained unsatisfactory
in 2003. An important development was the Law on Legal Status of Religious
Communities which permitted all “traditional” confessions to develop freely,
found schools and carry out humanitarian work on an equal basis.
However,
the Roman Catholic Church as the most significant religious community in the
country retained a privileged status. This originated from an agreement signed
between the Holy See and
The
status of freedom of religion in the country was still assessed according to
the standards of the Roman Catholic Church, which in practice resulted in
distortions in the treatment of religious communities. Moreover, the Roman
Catholic Church tried to impose itself as a social arbiter, and also indirectly
promoted certain political projects and parties, mostly of nationalist and
conservative orientation.
In addition, issues regarding the return of property that
had belonged to religious communities had not been addressed by the time of
writing. Legal regulations were generally accepted, but they were impossible to
carry out in practice. This was due to the fact that rectifying the old
injustice (from the Communist times when church property was confiscated and
nationalized) would result in large numbers of innocent people and their
families suffering because they lived in the houses and apartments which used
to belong to the church. It was argued that any return of church property would
need to be linked to solving their housing situation. No acceptable solution
was found to solve the problem and all religious communities expecting the
return of property remained impatient.
Intolerance, Xenophobia, Racial Discrimination and Hate Speech
In 2003 the level of
intolerance slightly increased due to the activities of some individuals,
groups and organizations. Racial intolerance was promoted mainly by groups of
skinheads while some parts of the Catholic Church openly promoted extreme
nationalist views and intolerant attitudes towards religious minority groups as
well as atheists. In a similar vein, some Catholic conservatives, as well as
others, expressed strong intolerance of groups leading alternate lifestyles,
including homosexuals.
Due to the electoral campaign
in November, public hate speech increased somewhat especially in the media. In
general, though, there was a decrease of hate speech in comparison with 1990s.
In
spite of numerous reports of attacks on citizens and foreigners of different
religions and races, according to police data, only 3 criminal acts were
registered in 2003. Police failed to confirm the suspicion that the
perpetrators were skinheads.
·
The same day in a local tram, a family of Austrian
nationals of Pakistani origin were beaten up. A few days earlier, four students
from
·
There were also three reported cases of street violence consisting in the
demolition of a store owned by Chinese.
Following the case of Karim
Hassan case, the Croatian government expressed a public apology and the police
established the Department for Extreme Violence and Terrorism. Generally
though, the police did not react properly (they usually merely registered the
cases) and the courts did not hand down adequate sentences.
Roma often fell victim to
racial intolerance and violent attacks. According to police reports, five
attacks qualifying as criminal plus two misdemeanors were committed at the
expense of the Roma people. Judging by the everyday situation in
The media was largely responsible
for the spreading racial intolerance and promoting violence. Some media
outlets, in order to get the highest public ratings, offered space to anonymous
extremists to express freely their intolerant ideas. Furthermore, most
journalists were willing to report, alongside the name of the perpetrator,
their ethnicity, in cases in which the perpetrators were not members of the
majority population.
Ethnically motivated incidents against Serbs were recorded
more often than before, which apparently was mainly due to increased awareness
under pressure from the EU.
·
On the occasion of the Memorial tournament of the
Croatian defenders in Vukovar, a 14-year-old boy of Serb origin was banned from
the local soccer team FC Vukovar on account of his ethnic belonging. According
to the press this was approved by the Vukovar based organizations established
after the “Homeland War” (war widows and disabled persons announced that Serbs
were “not allowed” to play soccer on the Memorial Day of the Croatian
Defenders). A shocking factor was that the local authorities did not issue any
statement regarding the incident.
Another
case dealing with ethnically motivated hatred and intolerance against the Serb
population in Croatia, was the well-known trial of Gordana Dumbović,
former mayor of the city of Petrinja, who was charged on account of her highly
derogatory speech towards Serbs and Roma on the local radio station during the
electoral campaign 1999/2000. After more than two years of trial the municipal
court of Kutina cleared her of all charges.
Returnees and IDPs
In
2003 the government adopted several legal documents regarding implementation of
the return process, property repossession and reconstruction.
The
Ministry for Public Works, Reconstruction and Construction started
implementation of the June 2000 Amendments to the Law on Reconstruction
regarding destroyed residential property and in July three new Laws were
adopted.[3]
During
the parliamentary procedure of adopting the above-mentioned laws, the CHC
criticized several discriminatory provisions, including the one stating that
refugees of Serb ethnicity could not apply for compensation if they did not
posses Croatian citizenship. This provision was deleted from the law in its
later stage. Another discriminatory and restrictive provision referred to the
compensation process in cases of responsibility for damage caused by terrorist
acts. According to the law, the right to compensation was possible only in
cases of death, physical injuries or damaged health. However, the main obstacle
lay in the provision that allowed for retroactive enforcement of the law and
its application in court procedures initiated prior to its enforcement, thereby
violating article 84 of the Constitution.
Furthermore, the process of return of occupied private
property continued but at a very slow pace. On 17 April, the government adopted
a decision on compensation to owners of occupied property. The decision
referred to the procedure and amount of compensation to be paid to owners whose
property was allocated by the government for the accommodation of others under
the 1995 Law on Temporary Take-Over and Administration of Specified Property
but was not returned within the defined deadlines. The main reason for the slow
pace of property return was the inefficiency of the judiciary and the fact that
it tended to favor occupants over the legal rights of owners.
The
situation of displaced tenancy rights holders improved following the
introduction of a government decision in June 2003 according to which
accommodation would be provided for persons outside the Areas of Special State
Protectorate, i.e. in former Krajina, parts of
The
agreement by which the government committed itself to pay the rent to the
owners of the appropriated property remained unsatisfactory, and there were
only a small number of people who actually fulfilled their obligations, among
other things, by signing the agreements to this effect. The owners of the
property had to renounce their rights to seek interest rate and other
compensation for damages, and they were obliged to drop any charges currently
underway.
The CHC
continued to work with refugees and returnees on an individual basis. The CHC
also introduced some special programs for possible returnees still settled in
Labor Rights
In
2003, the CHC, among other things, made a special effort to resolve labor
disputes, especially regarding the payment of compensation and other guaranteed
labor rights.
Following
the government’s parliamentary procedure regarding changes to the Labour Law, CHC made moves to retain positive
provisions. Based on the new draft, the rights of workers and other rights
dealing with labor relations would be significantly decreased, including
payment of smaller amounts of compensation, shortening of deadlines for
dismissal, etc. In an attempt to maintain at least a minimum of the existing
labor rights, guaranteed by the previous Labor Law, the CHC organized a round
table on the topic, to which trade union representatives, representatives of
the relevant ministries,the State Inspectorate, the Croatian Fund for Health
Insurance and the Croatian Retirement Fund were invited.
There was noticeable progress in the Bankruptcy Law
following the introduction of amendments. In comparison to the previous
Bankruptcy Law, former employees who according to their compensation belonged
to the group of second grade payments under the new law entered the group
belonging to first grade payments.
The application of the Convalidation Law also provoked
numerous debates regarding the failure of workers to accomplish their rights to
retirement, social insurance and similar. Since a large number of insured
persons had not managed to solve this problem, and since complaints regarding
the recognition of their status during the war period remained unresolved, a
series of actions were undertaken in order to apply the law as flexibly as
possible in practice.
There was a common problem regarding the realization of
the right to payment of remaining salaries and compensation for the former
employees of firms, which were undergoing bankruptcy procedures. The main
obstacle was the bankrupt firms’ lack of financial means. Several hundreds of
former workers of large companies such as “Željezara Sisak,” “Vama,” “Nama” and
others turned to the CHC for help.
In addition to the abovementioned complaints, there was
also a smaller number of complaints regarding relations between employers and
employees. There were also problems within schools, where some teachers
complained of violations of their rights by headmasters.
Individual
problems regarding denial of rights stemming from labor relations also occurred
in private firms as well as in state institutions. Individuals often complained
of the working conditions in their workplace, non-payment of salaries, threats of
dismissal and failure of employees to pay compensation.
Actions against dismissal tended to last for many years
and those few who managed to have their rights confirmed by the competent court
were then faced with an entirely different set of problems. Employers often
failed to respect the court decisions, and found various ways of preventing
employees from returning to their former place of work.
The CHC had
established very good working relations with the competent ministries, such as
the Ministry of Work and Social Care, the Ministry of Justice as well as the
State Inspectorate – Inspection of Work. Consequently, CHC’s proposals
regarding the new Labor law draft were partly adopted.
Environmental Rights
During the year the CHC became
involved once more in activities concerning health protection, and protection
of the environment and a number of civil organizations were involved in sending
complaints to the competent bodies on these issues.
Most complaints referred to
the former cement factories Koromačno in
The governmental order
regarding emissions from stationary sources,[4]
according to which polluters were allowed to emit a larger quantity of
emissions, while they should have been reduced, remained a source of
controversy. In spite of the fact that citizen’s organizations had turned to
the competent bodies on several occasions, significant steps were not taken.
The CHC initiated a series of
activities in order to present the issue to the public. The problem was also
recognized by the Ombudsman’s Office, whose deputy warned of the need to find
an appropriate solution.
[1] Based on the Annual Report
2003 of the Croatian
[2] “Bajaga” was not the first Serbian group to hold a concert in
[3] The Law on the
Responsibility for Damage Caused by the Terrorist Acts and Public
Demonstrations, the Law on the Responsibility of the Republic of Croatia for
the Damage Caused by Members of the Croatian Armed Forces and Police During the
Homeland War, and the Law on Responsibility of the Republic of Croatia for
Compensation Resulting from Damage Caused in the Former FRY for which the
Former FRY was Responsible.
[4] NN-105/02