CONSTITUTIONAL COURT RESCINDS TENANTS' RIGHTS TERMINATION

ZAGREB, May 17 (Hina) - The Croatian Constitutional Court on Wednesday accepted a constitutional complaint by husband and wife T. I. and N. I. and overruled the order of the Split county and municipal court on the termination of their tenants' rights, and referred the case back to the municipal court. It was the stance of the Constitutional Court that the courts of lower instance had failed to completely and truly establish the facts, thus violating the Constitutional provision of equality, national equality and the rule of law as one of the highest values of Croatia's constitutional order. Based on the then valid provision of the Law on tenants' relations, it was stipulated that the termination of tenants' rights could be established for persons who had or were participating in enemy activities against Croatia. The Constitutional Court ordered that in the case of the plaintiff the condition for the application of this provision had not been met, as no criminal proceedings had been initiated against the plaintiff to ascertain any enemy actions against the republic of Croatia. Enemy actions of the plaintiff had been established by courts based on exclusively the fact that during 1991 they had gone to Boka Kotorska in Montenegro with which Croatia had at the time been in hostile relations, and had thus sided with aggression on Croatia. (hina) lml mm