COUNTERACTING THE LEGISLATIVE AUTONOMY WITH BALLOT MEASURES

Abstract

In this paper I explore the legal dimensions of the autonomy of the legislature in the context of the current pandemic. The paper is situated in Croatian constitutional theory and is written against the background of two developments. The first one is a decision of the Constitutional Court of Croatia that authorized the Croatian parliament to avoid a more demanding procedure for adopting the restrictions of fundamental rights enacted in the pandemic. The second development is the use of ballot initiatives to force the parliament to adhere to this procedure. Using the concept of constitutional silences as a tool, I bring these two developments together to explore what are the spaces for unwritten political rules left by the Croatian Constitution and how does the ballot initiative challenge them. I do this to argue that ballot initiatives should not be considered unconstitutional when they do not attempt to override legitimate constitutional silences of parliamentary representation.