Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities in the Republic of Croatia

Abstract

Please note that the translation provided below is only provisional translation and therefore does NOT represent an offical document of the Republic of Croatia. It confers no rights and imposes no obligations separate from does conferred or imposed by the legislation formally adopted and published in Croatian language. Please note that this translation is a final text version published in the Official Gazette no. 155/2002.

Counting for EU enlargement?

“…This is possible because rights are linked to numerical thresholds. For example, in Croatia minority rights are granted according to the census results (Petričušić, 2002). In Bosnia, they are linked to the Dayton Peace Agreement, which stopped the war of 1992-1995, and which divided the political system among the three constituent ethnic groups-Bosniak, Croat and Serb-as judged on the population distribution shown in the 1991 census (Bieber, 2004).…”

“…617-618). Representation in local government bodies depends on population numbers too: the threshold is 15% (Petričušić, 2002). If a certain minority makes up more than 30% in a local self-governed unit, this language can be used as the official minority language (Petričušić, 2002, p. 615).…”

“…As political representation in Croatia depends to a lesser extent on the census outcomes, the domestic adoption costs for complying with the EU census regulations were not as high as in Bosnia or Macedonia. Even though rights for minorities in Croatia also depend on the population numbers, the numerical threshold of 1.5% to guarantee representative seats for minorities (Petričušić, 2002;Tatalović, 2006, p. 55) is much lower than the 20% threshold in Macedonia. In addition, between 1991 and 2001 the share of ethnic minorities decreased by 50% (Tatalović, 2006), with the result that Croatia is ethnically more homogeneous than Bosnia or Macedonia.…”

“…The Serbian National Council, the local authority of the ethnic Serbs in Croatia, was very critical of the census and mentioned 'serious irregularities' in the census process (Pavelic, 2012). In Croatia, minority rights depend on the census outcomes (Petričušić, 2002), therefore ethnic minorities have an increased interest in the census. Overall, the census process in Croatia was not significantly affected by domestic actors and there were not many reports of irregularities during the census process.…”

“…As census data is used to allocate resources, for example the distribution of funds and subsidies, ultimately some profit more than others, which makes census processes highly political and even more so, when rights of minority and ethnic groups are connected to the census outcomes, as in the case countries. In Croatia minority rights are linked to the census results (Petričušić, 2002). In Bosnia the population data of 1991 is linked to the Dayton Peace Agreement, which divides the political system among the three constituent ethnic groups (Bosniak, Croat and Serb) (Armakolas & Maksimovic, 2014;Bieber, 2004).…”