ZAGREB, May 12 (Hina) - The Croatian parliament's House of Representatives late Thursday evening adopted amendments to the Constitutional Law on Human Rights and Freedoms and the Rights of Ethnic and National Communities or
Minorities, and laws on the usage of languages and scripts of Croatia's national minorities and education in minorities' languages and scripts. Adopting a demand by the committee on human rights and national minorities, the Lower House bound the government to forward into parliamentary procedure a new, integral constitutional law on minorities within six months.
ZAGREB, May 12 (Hina) - The Croatian parliament's House of
Representatives late Thursday evening adopted amendments to the
Constitutional Law on Human Rights and Freedoms and the Rights of
Ethnic and National Communities or Minorities, and laws on the
usage of languages and scripts of Croatia's national minorities and
education in minorities' languages and scripts.
Adopting a demand by the committee on human rights and national
minorities, the Lower House bound the government to forward into
parliamentary procedure a new, integral constitutional law on
minorities within six months.#L#
Even though yesterday's afternoon session had been interrupted
many times during which the ruling six-party coalition tried to
have the bill of amendments adopted by consensus, the coalition
succeeded in winning only the two-thirds majority number of votes
necessary for adopting amendments to a constitutional law.
Twenty-eight MPs of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) voted
against the bill, while five, four from the Croatian Party of
Rights/Croatian Christian Democratic Union coalition and one from
the HDZ, abstained.
The Lower House rejected an HDZ amendment urging the exclusion from
the bill of a provision referring to proportionate representation
of national minority representatives in the executive authority.
The provision refers to minorities accounting for more than eight
percent of Croatia's entire population according to the next
census.
The HDZ believes the amendments would make minorities "over-
represented". Bench president Vladimir Seks said the amendments
could give Serbs 12 representatives in parliament, plus another
seven to minorities accounting for less than eight percent of the
entire population.
The HDZ voted against the bill of amendments which they said could
give minorities 19 representatives in parliament.
During debate on a bill regulating the usage of languages and
scripts of national minorities, the Lower House adopted a Croatian
Social Liberal Party amendment urging the exclusion from the final
bill's name of the wording "equal and official" language usage.
Other MPs agreed the bill thus respected a constitutional provision
on the Croatian language.
(hina) ha jn