Babe, Centre for Peace, Non-violence and Human Rights – Osijek, CESI, CMS, Documenta, GONG, Croatian Youth Network, Green Action and Green Istria condemn the way the Croatian government accepted the Code of Public Consultation in the Procedures of Passing Laws and Other Regulations

The Croatian government accepted the Code of Public Consultation in the Procedures of Passing Laws and Other Regulations on a session held 21 November 2009. The civil society organizations which sign this letter would have gladly greeted this decision if it wasn't for the following:

1. The Government made the decision in a closed session without even informing the public via announcement after the session.

2. The decision was made after more than a year since the immediate Government cabinet rejected the text of the Code (July 2008), while in the meantime the public had no knowledge of the phase of the alignment procedure of the text of the Code or if anything is done regarding the matter at all.

3. The text of the Code accepted by the Government on 21 November 2009 is different from the one rejected in July 2008, while there was no public debate on the changes made nor was the public in any way informed of them prior to the acceptance of the Code. A particularly disturbing fact is that the Council for the Development of Civil Society was also ignored, so not even the members of the Council were given an opportunity to give their final opinion of the text of the Code prior to its acceptance by the Government.

4. We find that the altered text of the Code, accepted by the Government, is unsatisfactory and inappropriate, which is elaborated in detail in the comments on the text of the Code attached to this letter.

All of the above leads us to conclude that this is yet another one of the Government's decisions which only pro forma satisfy their obligations under various national strategies, without actual willingness and aptitude to significantly engage the civil society organizations and the rest of the interested public in the decision-making processes as well as to inform them at all of the acceptance of the Code. It is absolutely unacceptable that the Code, which is meant to provide guidelines for efficient consultation of the Government bodies and the interested public, was finalized without consultation with the civil society organizations and without public debate and accepted in a closed session, away from the public eye.

Such treatment in fact contradicts the accepted Code, i.e. its goals and principles and demonstrate the Government's extreme misunderstanding of the process of consultation with the interested public.

Additional criticism can be directed to the government due to the fact that the Council of Europe, including Croatia, accepted the Code of Good Practice for Civil Participation in the Decision-Making Process, and was also invited via the accompanying Declaration of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers to consider the Code while developing the involvement of NGOs in the decision-making processes – which is exactly what the Government failed to do when passing the Code.

Furthermore, such actions again marginalized the role of the Croatian Parliament, as the Government independently made a decision on the Code without debate and decision-making in the highest legislative and representative body, which we find unacceptable.

Considering all of the above and acknowledging the fact that the accepted Code proscribes that the Office for cooperation with NGOs should provide guidelines for its application, we call upon the Office for cooperation with NGOs to include the civil society organizations i.e. to consult the interested public, thereby following and fulfilling the spirit and intention of the Code. We also greet the efforts made by the Office in organizing consultations with the civil society organizations which resulted in the text rejected by the Government in July 2008. We hope that the Office will continue the good practice and thereby correct at least to some extent what the Government had done, or failed to do, regarding the Code.


Signed by:
Babe, Centre for Peace, Non-violence and Human Rights – Osijek, CESI, CMS, Documenta, GONG, Croatian Youth Network, Green Action and Green Istria.