ZAGREB, Feb 16 (Hina) - Croatia's Constitutional Court has ruled that the removal of a bilingual plate from the wall of the building of Istria County in Pazin was in accordance to the then regulations and the current ones as
well.
ZAGREB, Feb 16 (Hina) - Croatia's Constitutional Court has ruled
that the removal of a bilingual plate from the wall of the building
of Istria County in Pazin was in accordance to the then regulations
and the current ones as well. #L#
The plate with the Croatian and Italian inscription was put on the
wall of the county authorities' building in 1998, although the laws
allowed the set-up of bilingual plaques only on buildings of town
and municipal authorities in municipal and towns where members of
ethnic minorities made up more than a half of the local population.
Pursuant to a decree of the administration ministry, the plate was
removed from the Pazin building, and after that the then Istria
County Prefect, Stevo Zufic, lodged a complaint with the
Administrative Court. The complaint was dismissed, and the
explanation was that the ministry's decree was not an
administrative decision. Then the prefect filed an appeal with the
Constitutional Court.
This court's six-member panel recently rejected the appeal
unanimously, although it asserted that the administrative court's
ruling was wrong, given that the ministry's decree had been an
administrative decision.
However, the Constitutional Court did not quash the administrative
court's ruling, saying that its decision had not been relevant in
the constitutional and legal sense, and the return of the case to
that court would not produce different legal consequences.
In the meantime, Croatia's parliament adopted a constitutional law
on the rights of ethnic minorities, which allows the set-up of
bilingual boards and plates on buildings of county authorities, but
this is possible only if a county's statute or an bilateral
agreement envisage it, or if it is a part of the acquired rights.
According to the Constitutional Court, Istria County still has none
of the said pre-conditions.
Therefore the same court has ruled that the set-up of bilingual
plates on the building of Istria County's building in Pazin is not
either constitutional, legal, statutory or acquired right. Thus,
the removal of the plate did not violate anybody's rights neither
did it infringe the right to the equal official use of languages of
national minorities.
(hina) ms