ZAGREB, Oct 4 (Hina) - The Croatian national parliament's House of Representative on Wednesday forwarded a bill on amendments to the law on misdemeanours, which aims are better protection of victims of family violence. In line with
this, the magistrates' court, in cases of violent behaviour in families, would be able to keep the accused in custody until the passing of a verdict and set that the verdict be implemented immediately, regardless of the appeal, said deputy Labour and Social Welfare Minister Bozo Zaja. Parliamentary benches supported the amendments, but stressed they should also regulate the separation of a violent persons from the family, in order to avoid further cases of violence and to make easier for the victims to turn the violent persons in. The fact that the perpetrator would not be removed from the family is one of the most fundamental reasons why victims of violent behaviour, whic
ZAGREB, Oct 4 (Hina) - The Croatian national parliament's House of
Representative on Wednesday forwarded a bill on amendments to the
law on misdemeanours, which aims are better protection of victims
of family violence.
In line with this, the magistrates' court, in cases of violent
behaviour in families, would be able to keep the accused in custody
until the passing of a verdict and set that the verdict be
implemented immediately, regardless of the appeal, said deputy
Labour and Social Welfare Minister Bozo Zaja.
Parliamentary benches supported the amendments, but stressed they
should also regulate the separation of a violent persons from the
family, in order to avoid further cases of violence and to make
easier for the victims to turn the violent persons in.
The fact that the perpetrator would not be removed from the family
is one of the most fundamental reasons why victims of violent
behaviour, which are usually women, have hard time deciding whether
to report the violence", Ljubica Lalic of the Croatian Peasants'
Party (HSS) said.
She said that in the fist nine months of this year, there were close
to 1,000 violent persons in families, 1591 victims, and only 171
verdicts were passed.
This means that of 1,000 perpetrators, 830 of them remained to live
with their families even after the intervention of police, Lalic
added.
Milanka Opacic of the SDP said that between 1995 and 1999, family
violence was increased by 2,561 cases. Over 70 percent of the
violence takes place within families, and only 10 percent on the
streets. Over 50 percent of family violence is physical, Opacic
added.
Jadranka Kosor of the Croatian Democratic Union believes that the
information is only partially accurate, because they only speak of
reported cases.
The percentage of non registered cases and cases which didn't make
the statistics is much greater, Kosor said. She added that in 1997,
family violence was increased by 100 percent in relation to the year
before.
Mario Kovac of the Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS) believes
that the maximum sentence of 30 days in prison for family violence
was not long enough.
(hina) it jn