CROATIAN UPPER HOUSE IN SESSION

ZAGREB, Sept 15 (Hina) - The Croatian Parliament House of Counties began a session on Monday. The agenda of the session has 46 items. At the beginning, the upper house accepted a proposal of Niko Bulic that his mandate should be unfrozen, as he was relieved of the duty of Tourism Minister. In this way, the mandate of Petar Djukan ended. Without long debates, the upper house accepted the adoption of 13 bills on ratification of international conventions and bilateral agreements. Those bills include ratification of European local self- government charter, ratification of an agreement on free trade between Croatia and Macedonia, several bills on social insurance and the ratification of an agreement between Croatia and Germany on the acceptance of returnees. Croatia committed itself to ratifying some conventions when it was admitted to the Council of Europe. The House of Counties expressed the positive stance on a package of four bills referring to the penal code. These bills, that are in the second reading in the Parliament, propose a systematic reform of the penal code. One of proposed novelties is the introduction of the prison sentence from 20 to 40 years at most. Rape in marriage will be treated as a crime, and punishment for the abuse of or insufficient care for children will be more severe under these bills. (hina) jn mš 152137 MET sep 97