On November 23, non-governmental organizations, Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights – Osijek, Centre for Peace Studies, CESI, Documenta, GONG, Civic Committee for Human Rights (CCHR), Iskorak and Green Action  organized a debate over Constitutional changes in the Croatian Parliament.

Vesna Kesić, the moderator of the debate, said that the organizers wishes were to encourage civic participation in constitutional changes and to start a public debate. The necessary Constitutional reforms as part of the EU accession talks have been reduced to discussions between the government and opposition.  Politicians consider it a big success due to the fact that political elites started a dialogue as opposed to previous unilateral changes. However civic society has the right to demand a participatory and transparent process.

Professor Siniša Rodin from the Faculty of Law and Goran Čular from the Faculty of Political Sciences made an introduction where they suggested two completely different but interesting aspects of constitutional changes.

Professor Rodin believes that these Constitutional changes should focus on matters related to EU accession, while setting all other matters aside – as they only feed into the Croatian political elite's tendency towards trading and are likely to lead to compromises which may start a long and excruciating political conflict and prolong the entire process.

He feels that there should be a political agreement to approach only these necessary changes and to initiate all other changes after the Croatian accession to the EU.

Professor Čular, on the other hand, critically opposed such a view where we should adapt democratic processes according to a predefined goal. According to professor Čular, the political elite is playing its own game. They have decided to join the EU and admit quite openly that they would come up with any process necessary to realize this; thereby meaning that they will only allow the citizens to vote on a referendum that would guarantee confirmation of the Croatian accession to the EU.

Representatives of non-governmental organizations gave concrete suggestions about constitutional changes.

Sandra Pernar from GONG presented their proposal on the Constitutional right to access information as a universal human right. The UN recognizes it per se, as well as many other states (including the European Union), considering that the right of access to information is a basis for many other human rights, such as the right to freedom of thought.

Vesna Teršelič from Documenta presented a proposal regarding the principle of non-extradition of Croatian citizens to other countries. The position taken by Documenta, Centre for Peace and the Civil Committee for Human Rights is that international treaties signed by the Republic of Croatia should include war criminals as an exception from the non-extradition principle.

Gordan Bosanac from CMS (Centre for Peace Studies) presented a proposal to replace the term peacemaking in Article 3 of the Constitution with the phrase "building peace and non-violence" because today building of peace is a generally accepted term. He emphasized that, considering the relatively recent war and the efforts that Croatia made in the building of peace, non-violence and building peace are definitely matters to be acknowledged both as a constitutional category and as a basic value of the society.

Aleksandar Hatzivelkos from the Initiative "NATO on referendum" proposed the number of signatures required for a referendum to be decreased from the current 10% to 3% as this would make referendums a really useable mechanism for citizens decision-making and it would increase the accountability of political parties towards the public in the long term.

Edo Bulić from Iskorak proposed that sexual orientation should be entered as basis for discrimination and stimulating hatred and intolerance, considering that sexual orientation is in fact one of the main causes of social discrimination and inequality. An additional proposal was made for same-sex partnerships to be protected by the state like the marriage and civil union already are.

The conclusion at the end of the round-table discussion was that the given proposals would be consolidated and forwarded to the amenable parliamentary committees, as well as the members of the Parliament themselves, so that they can make their way into the wording of the Constitution.