ZAGREB, Feb 22 (Hina) - Parliament's deputy speaker Mato Arlovic said on Friday a constitutional bill on the rights of national minorities was withdrawn from parliamentary procedure due to many inconsistencies. Arlovic was speaking at
a round table organised by the Croatian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights (HHO). His debate with Milorad Pupovac, the president of the Serb National Council, showed that representatives of the government and national minorities differed completely in their view of the model of the exercising of minorities' rights. Arlovic said the bill would have created a parallel Constitution referring to minorities alone. His main objection is that the bill envisaged the formation of units of minority self-government, which he said meant that in local units where Croats were a minority, they could have formed a minority self-government. Pupovac dismissed Arlovic's claims by stati
ZAGREB, Feb 22 (Hina) - Parliament's deputy speaker Mato Arlovic
said on Friday a constitutional bill on the rights of national
minorities was withdrawn from parliamentary procedure due to many
inconsistencies.
Arlovic was speaking at a round table organised by the Croatian
Helsinki Committee on Human Rights (HHO). His debate with Milorad
Pupovac, the president of the Serb National Council, showed that
representatives of the government and national minorities differed
completely in their view of the model of the exercising of
minorities' rights.
Arlovic said the bill would have created a parallel Constitution
referring to minorities alone. His main objection is that the bill
envisaged the formation of units of minority self-government,
which he said meant that in local units where Croats were a
minority, they could have formed a minority self-government.
Pupovac dismissed Arlovic's claims by stating nobody intended to
make the Croatian people be proclaimed a minority in their own
state, in any of its segments, in any way.
He believes it is unnecessary to dismiss the bill and establish a
new task force to draw up a new one. The current bill can be amended,
he said.
The withdrawal of the bill prolongs the settlement of the status of
national minorities once again, Pupovac said, adding this affected
the minorities the most as attempts to find a solution for the
exercising of their rights, which he added were either suspended or
revoked, had been postponed for seven years now.
HHO president Zarko Puhovski believes the bill has serious
technical inconsistencies, but says it was not withdrawn on account
of that but due to lack of political will to pass it.
Civil society should now exert pressure on both representatives of
the minorities and the majority's political representatives to
draw up and pass a new law as soon as possible, Puhovski said.
(hina) ha sb