The annulled provisions of the legislation envisaged that the Agricultural Land Agency should be in charge of managing uncultivated farmland.
These provisions were challenged by many farmers and nongovernmental organisations, including the Serb Democratic Forum and the Union of Farmers' Associations of Slavonia and Baranja, who claimed that the law limited ownership rights and the freedom to sell and lease land.
It is unacceptable in a law-based country to make it impossible for owners to use their ownership for some time whereby owners have no legal means available to protect themselves against unlawful or arbitrary interference of public authorities into ownership rights, according to today's ruling made by the Constitutional Court.
On 7 July, the court unanimously decided to delay the Agricultural Land Act until its decision on whether the law was constitutional or not.