Introducing Hate Crimes in Croatian Penal Law

HINA

06 December 2005

The Iskorak and Kontra associations, at the round-table discussion �Introducing Hate Crimes in the Croatian Penal Law�, held yesterday, came forward with proposed changes in the Penal Law, proposing the introduction of �hate crime� as criminal offense.

Grodana Lukac-Koritnik, Gender Equality Ombudsperson

In addition to representatives of the civil society, the debate gathered legal experts, judges, gender equality and human rights officials, as well as representatives of the Ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs.

The initiators believe that the specific definition of hate crimes would ease the recognition of that form of crime and more effective punisment of such offences. In the majority of cases, these offences include violent attacks against minority groups � persons of different nationality, sexual orientation, religious or political affiliation, social status or race.

At this time, the authorities don�t treat such incidents as hate crimes. For instance, Jadranka Pamic from the Zagreb Court of Misdemeanours says that the group of skinheads that attacked a group of French tourists was punished for �serious disturbance of public order� to 30 days in prison, which is the maximum penalty prescribed for that offence.

Gordana Lukac-Koritnik, the Gender Equality Ombudsperson, believes that such offences should not be treated as misdemeanours, but as crimes, and added that the Police, when bringing up charges, should not have that dilemma either.

Visnja Ljubicic, from the Human Rights Office, announced that the Police, in cooperation with OSCE, will start a programme of education on hate crimes in the beginning of 2006.

Ljubicic, however, shares the opinion of Vladimir Filipovic, from the Penal Law Bureau of the Ministry of Justice, that hate crimes are well covered by the existing legislation, but work needs to be done on the implementation of the legislation.

"Many European countries chose to not regulate that area with special legislation, and have ranked hate crimes under discriminatory, racist practices and crimes, or similar forms of crimes�, added Ljubicic.

According to the data available from the non-governmental organizations, this year only, about forty attacks on Serbs were reported, as well as a dozen attacks on persons with alternative sexual orientation. That is, they claim, just a fraction of the actual number of violent attacks.