Abolish Discrimination of Same-Sex Unions in Croatian Legislation

17 March 2006

The Croatian Sabor started yesterday afternoon the debate on the Draft-Law on Registered Partnerships. The proposal was submitted to the Sabor by Sime Lucin (SDP) and Ivo Banac (independent). The Draft-Law proposes expansion of rights of same-sex unions, compared to the rights allocated by the existing legislation. The Legal Team established by Iskorak and Kontra associations came out in public and demanded that the legal discrimination of same-sex unions in Croatia is abolished.

According to the Legal Team, the past two years of implementation have shown that the Law on Same-Sex Unions exists on purely declarative level and can�t secure the rights for which it was prepared. The Law is contradictory to itself, since it prohibits discrimination based on same-sex unions and homosexual orientation, while on the other hand it introduces the very discrimination it was designed to prevent, through a narrow, almost inexistent scope of rights it secures for the same-sex partnerships.

Since the Law has been adopted, the Legal Team has received numerous calls from persons living in same-sex unions with questions about the rights that they can realize. The Team found it hard to explain to the callers that, just because their partners were of the same sex, they have practically no rights; they can�t apply for bank loans together; share social or healthcare insurance; visit the partner treated at the emergency room; or inherit an apartment or house they shared with a diseased partner. Even the right to divide the assets they acquired jointly can be realized only if they prove that they lived together. So, after years of proving to the society that they are �normal folks�, they now have to prove that they union actually existed.

Using such real-life examples as the starting point, the Legal Team drafted a Proposal for the New Law on Registered Partnerships, later submitted to the Sabor by MPs Lucin and Banac. The Proposal, emphasizes the Team, still discriminates a child whose parent has entered a same-sex union. A child raised by registered partners won�t be eligible for adoption by the partner of the its father/mother, which means that it will be denied the rights and obligations available to children of heterosexual unions.

This refers, in particular, to the right of inheritance, which doesn�t apply directly to the stepchild without an official adoption procedure. Nonetheless, this solution was included in the Draft having in mind the current political situation in the country, and the Team considers it a step forward towards reduction of discrimination of same-sex pairs.

Invoking a number of international public law principles and emphasizing the presence of homophobia in its member states, the European Parliament used its Resolution on Homophobia in Europe of January 18, 2006, to demonstrate strongly that it won�t tolerate homophobia inside its borders.

The Resolution demands, points out the Legal Team, from the member states to �...to enact legislation to end discrimination faced by same-sex partners in the areas of inheritance, property arrangements, tenancies, pensions, tax, social security etc.� (Line 11). It demands, therefore, that member-states secure the same rights contained in the Draft-Law on Registered Partnerships. Were Croatia an EU member-state today, which it aims to become, it could expect serious sanctions by the European Union if it dismissed the Draft-Law on Registered Partnerships, and would have to explain to the European Commission and Parliament how exactly it intends to secure the said rights to same-sex partners.