Ban on Public Gathering in St. Marko Square Annulled as Unconstitutional

23 November 2005

The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia annulled earlier today the changes in the Law on Public Gathering which banned, some four months ago, all public gatherings within 100 metres from the buildings of the Croatian Sabor, the Presidential Offices, the Government of Croatia and the Constitutional court.

The ruling of the Constitutional Court shall enter into force on March 31, 2006, which means that the ban will effectively be in place until that date.

St. Mark Square will be open for public gatherings again.

The Ruling is based on the formal unconstitutionality of the said provisions, having in mind that they were adopted with insufficient majority. The Law regulates the basic human rights and freedoms of the citizens and its adoption requires qualified majority of 50% plus one vote of the total number of MPs, and the majority lacked one vote.

The Judges in the Constitutions Court accepted the arguments of the initiators of the procedure, including several trade unions, the Croatian Helsinki Committee, and the MPs from the Social-Democratic Party, who claimed that one vote was missing for the Law to be adopted in a proper procedure.

The Ruling, therefore, ignored the objections of �Matija Gubec� civil initiative, which claimed that the changes violate the basic human rights and the freedoms of public gathering and expression, thus being not only formally, but materially unconstitutional.