Under the amendment, slander, libel and insult would no longer be subject to a prison sentence but only to a fine.
"After the latest judgements against journalists and writers for what they wrote, it is evident that court practice does not respect the fact that defamation committed in a public statement is de facto decriminalised," Skare Ozbolt told Hina.
"During the present parliamentary debate on amending the Criminal Code, I will propose an amendment under which defamation committed in journalistic work, a scientific, literary or artistic work, a public statement or in the course of performance of political or any other public duties will no longer be treated as a criminal offence," she said. "This will once and for all put an end to the debate that people in Croatia go to prison for defamation."
Skare Ozbolt said that next week she was meeting representatives of the Croatian Journalists' Association (HND) and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to discuss the matter and explain her proposal in detail.
Also on Sunday, Government spokesman Vlatko Macek said that the Government would most likely ask the Parliament to amend the Criminal Code under a fast-track procedure. He added that the initiative for amending the Criminal Code came from Prime Minister Ivo Sanader.
HND President Dragutin Lucic welcomed the proposal, saying that the HND had been fighting for three years to have the crime of defamation in the media abolished.