CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA AND CITIZEN-INITIATED REFERENDA IN THE 2013-2015 PERIOD

ANALYSIS AND PROPOSALS

Abstract

The author analyzes the decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia regarding citizen-initiated referenda, adopted in the period between 2013 and 2015. From the referendum on the definition of marriage, through the Court’s ruling on the referendum on the Cyrillic script, to the most recent cases dealing with outsourcing in the public administration and monetization of Croatian highways, she outlines a trend of growing limitations to the popular referendum institute. Paying particular attention to the decision on outsourcing from 8 April 2015, she highlights the problem areas of constitutional jurisprudence and suggests their corrections. Regarding the cogent nature of the obligation to substantiate the initiative with a statement of circumstances that provoked it, she holds that question as falling in the area of legislative discretion. Regarding the “premature nature” of an initiative, she argues that the Court may not tie its destiny to the existence of a Government’s program not yet formalized as a concrete bill. It also cannot clairvoyantly assess the impact of a referendum on the system of public finances. In balancing the right to referendum with budgetary stability, it may only take account of foreseeable consequences and measurable data, and withhold the right to referendum only in cases of decisions whose impact on the state’s fiscal stability would violate the guarantees of the Constitution’s Arts.3 and 16. Finally, she concludes on the impermissibility of applying stricter scrutiny to citizen-initiated referenda then to identical texts adopted by the Croatian Parliament. She holds such escalation of standards of review untenable in the light of a grammatical and teleological interpretation of the Constitution, as well as due to its punitive effect.