TENANTS' RIGHTS ARE SORT OF PROPERTY INTERESTS -- OSCE

ZAGREB, Nov 22 (Hina) - The OSCE Mission in Croatia believes that tenants' rights are undoubtedly a sort of property interests and expects the Croatian government to pass provisions which would compensate for the loss of former tenants' rights holders. The OSCE said it was prepared to assist the government in finding solutions acceptable to all parties, OSCE Mission spokesman Alessandro Fracassetti told Hina on Thursday. Asked to comment on the development of events regarding the problem of the restitution of lost tenants' rights or compensations for them, on which the OSCE and government have differing opinions, Fracassetti reiterated the already known Mission's stance because of which the issue was in the lime light last week. A significant number of families, Croatian citizens, almost exclusively of Serb nationality, has lost their tenants' rights through legislature adopted before, during and after the war, Fracassetti said. The Mission believes that laws adopted in 1995 pertaining to areas of special government care were not stimulating for the return of Serbs who fled the country, as well as that many tenants' rights had been rescinded in a procedure which did not respect conditions of Article 6 of the convention of the protection of human rights, which guarantees the right to a fair trial. Fracassetti also recalled that a part of the tenants' rights was lost only under the Law on the Lease of Flats in Liberated Areas, by which tenants' rights could be kept only if the holders returned to Croatia within 90 of the adoption of the Law, which the Mission described as impossible to carry out under the political circumstances of the time. The OSCE also requested an urgent review of cases of violent and armed evictions. The OSCE Mission believes that the protection of Article 1 of the protocol of the convention on the protection of human rights extended to tenants' rights, as they are, by character, a sort of property interests, Fracassetti stressed. The Mission believes that the government should pass provisions to replace the loss which the former users of tenants' rights suffered, and is prepared to assist the government in finding solutions acceptable to all sides, the spokesman asserted. The Mission has mentioned the problem of tenants' rights several times before and at last week's news conference, the Mission chief, Bernard Poncet, spoke about a regular report which he was presenting on Thursday before the OSCE Permanent Mission in Vienna, and said there were 50,000 to 60,000 such families in Croatia. Because of the controversy which broke out surrounding the number of such cases for which many claim do not exceed 15,000, the issue came into the lime light, causing polemics among representatives of the Croatian government, Croatian Serb refugees and the international community. Tenants' rights were taken away in a procedure in line with the then Croatian laws, and the contentious flats, after the court proceedings, were given to other people who bought them off for the most part later. There is a possibility of renewing the proceedings in court, about which the court makes a decision based on the request of one party, but this could lead to overburdening the already critically burdened Croatian courts, whose inefficiency is also one of the main objections of the international community. Croatian Vice-Premier Zeljka Antunovic said recently that OSCE representatives did not completely understand the complexity of the problem and that the Croatian government did not share their opinion about the tenants' rights issue. (hina) lml sb