CRO. PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES DISCUSS CONS. MINORITY BILL

ZAGREB, July 29 (Hina) - Three Croatian parliamentary committees - the Committee for the Constitution, Rule Book and Political System and the Committee for Legislature and the Committee for Local and Regional Self-Governments - postponed bringing a decision on a on the constitutional bill on national minorities' rights for Tuesday when they will give their opinion on 23 amendments proposed by the expert group from the Committee for Constitution. #L# The president of that committee, Mate Arlovic, pointed out three important amendments: on the selection of minority representatives to the Sabor, on the determination of the percentage of members of national minorities in units of local self-government on which basis they will have the right to the official use of their mother tongue and on listing all minorities in Croatia in the law. As regards the draft amendments, talks will be conducted with government representatives, i.e. the resigned Deputy Prime Minister Goran Granic as well as with minority representatives in an attempt to have the constitutional bill adopted by consensus. Granic believes that non-citation of the name of a minority in the law is in the interest of the minority, given that the fact that some minority is cited does not give it any special rights. He believes that the constitutional law recognises positive discrimination because minority representatives will require far less votes to enter the Sabor than other MPs. Arlovic on the other hand believes that minority representatives should be chosen from the lists presented by political parties. Minority groups have already expressed their dissatisfaction with this proposal. If by chance minorities are still not adequately represented, supplementary elections would be organised, he proposed. The official use of minority languages would be made possible in keeping with a government proposal within units of local self- government where minorities account for at least one-third of the population. Reacting to proposals that the condition for the introduction of a minority language should be one-quarter (i.e if 25 percent of residents are a minority), Arlovic said that minority groups were already being favoured with the figure of one-third because the current law only allows this where their numbers are at least half the population in a particular municipality or town. The fourth Sabor committee - the committee for human rights and national minority rights - supported the constitutional bill with its amendments. The bill will be discussed at the parliament's extraordinary session on Tuesday. Minority MPs however, oppose the urgent procedure of adopting the law and have asked that the bill be discussed in two readings so that minority groups can be given sufficient time to acquaint themselves with the bill and make any suggestions or objections. Minority MPs oppose the fact that the bill does not allow positive discrimination, that is, dual voting rights for minorities. They describe the government's withdrawal of the proposal for the dual voting rights as a political barter between the ruling coalition and the strongest opposition party - the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) - so that it could obtain the 101 votes required in the Sabor to adopt the constitutional law. The resigned Deputy Prime Minister Granic indirectly confirmed this opinion stating that the government backed down from the positive discrimination when it saw that it would not gain concord in the Sabor to adopt the law. Minority MPs have proposed a compromise with an amendment, i.e. that the future law includes a constitutional provision which would principally allow dual voting rights and that this could be determined by the future electoral law. The parliamentary minorities committee's head and the Italian minority's deputy, Furio Radin, pointed out that his vote in the Sabor will depend on whether this amendment is adopted or not. (hina) sp ms