Arhivski vjesnik, Vol. 61 No. 1, 2018.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
The Organisation of the Croatian Parliament in the Period from 1963 to 1974.
Nenad Bukvić
orcid.org/0000-0002-7417-4500
; Hrvatski Državni Arhiv, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
The organisation and the activities of the Croatian Parliament in the
communist period (1945-1990) is not a fully researched topic. The paper gives a contribution to the knowledge of its organisation in the period from 1963 to 1974. Its branched structure and the activities of its councils and working bodies are described in detail, which is also illustrated by the number of held sessions. By the Yugoslavian constitution adopted in April 1963, also called “the charter of selfmanagement”, the name of the state was changed from People’s to Socialist, its socialist attributes were emphasized, and selfmanagement was introduced in all segments of the society. By the new republican constitutions, such changes were also carried out in all then-existing Yugoslavian republics, including Croatia. In the forefront were placed »the sovereign rights of the working people and the Yugoslavian nations which they exercise«, inter alia, as representatives of the
working people in councils of federal and republican assemblies. It had affected the organisation of the highest formal political institutions of the government, including federal and republican assemblies, which were declared as »the highest state and self-government authorities, under the law and obligations« of federation, i.e. the republic. The declarative constitutional concept on the assemblies as the highest state and self-government authorities implied the shift in their organisation and activities from the traditional legislative bodies and »law factories« towards »the responsible policy holders«. In other words, »becoming the working selfgovernment bodies«, assemblies were meant to become the centres in which »the whole social practice and harmonised politics is gathered«. Thus, for example, by the constitution of the Socialist Republic of Croatia from April 1963, it was
declared that the Parliament (Sabor) can discuss and adopt declarations and resolutions »on all issues of common interest for the Republic [...] laying down values on politics in certain area and the means of its achievement«. The Croatian Parliament’s Rules of Procedure from 1965 provided the possibility of convening a General Croatian Conference (Opći sabor Hrvatske), i.e. joint sessions »on all
issues of the common interest for the Republic« of all of Parliament’s councils with the Central Committee of the Socialist League of Working People of Croatia and the Republican Committee for Croatia of the Association of Trade Unions in Yugoslavia. The main characteristic of the organisation of the Croatian Parliament in the period from 1963 to 1974 was its complex structure. In order to express its working character and central role in the political decision-making process in all
spheres of life in Croatia, it was organised as a five-cameral institution. It was the highest number of its chambers in the whole socialist period: until 1953 it was unicameral, in the period 1953-1963 bicameral, and in the period 1974-1990 a three-cameral institution. Those five chambers were: the Republican Council, the Economic Council, the Educational and Cultural Council, the Social and Health Council and the Organisational and Political Council. The Republican Council had 120 representatives, directly elected by the municipal assemblies and citizens. The other four councils had 80 representatives each, elected by the municipal assemblies among the workers across the working areas within the competence of each council. Except the Presidency of Parliament and its five councils, during the whole period 110 different permanent or temporary working bodies were established. Of that total, there were 27 joint working bodies of Parliament as a whole; the Republican Council had 20, the Economic Council 14, the Educational
and Cultural Council 15, the Social and Health Council 18, and the Organisational and Political Council 16 permanent or temporary working bodies. The Parliament’s councils and working bodies held in total 3 960 sessions, i.e. 360 per year. By comparison, in the period 1947-1953 during which it was organised as a unicameral body, the Parliament and its working bodies held in total 220 sessions (around 30 per year). In the period 1953- 1963 during which it was organised as
a bicameral body, the Parliament and its working bodies held in total 1224 sessions, i.e. around 120 per year. More detailed data on the number of sessions held in the analysed period are listed in the table at the end of this paper. The table also includes a systematic overview of all working bodies which were described earlier in this paper, llustrating at the same time the dynamics of changes in their establishment and elimination. Some authors describe the Parliamentary institutions in the communist states with the metaphor rubber stamp legislatures, meaning the institutions with small practical power in the political decisionmaking process, which automatically put a stamp on the legislative proposals of their governments, i.e. communist parties as the real owners of the political power. Some of the researches singled out as exceptions the Polish Sejm and the Yugoslavian Federal Assembly (in the frame of the political system established by the Yugoslavian constitution from 1974). That opens a new research topic about whether the Croatian Parliament in the period 1963-1974 was also “a paradoxical institution” or an exception. In other words, the relation between the formal (de iure) and the real (de facto) position of Croatian Parliament in the political system of that time should be more closely researched, as well as to find whether its position was weakened, in what way and to what extent by the comparison with other state political institutions (notably the Executive Council of Parliament of the Socialist Republic of Croatia), i.e. instrumentalized by the central bodies of the League of Communist of Yugoslavia/Croatia.
Ključne riječi
Croatian Parliament (Hrvatski sabor); parliamentary institutions; Croatia; Yugoslavia; history of institutions; period 1963-1974
Hrčak ID:
216955
URI
Datum izdavanja:
14.9.2018.
Posjeta: 1.717 *