Prime Minister: We'll use all legal means to oppose referendum on national minority rights

Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic announced on Monday that the government would use "all legal means" to oppose a possible referendum on national minority rights and that Sunday's marriage referendum was just a prelude to this.

After attending a City Council meeting in the eastern town of Osijek, Milanovic said that Sunday's marriage referendum was a "camouflage and artillery preparation" for the referendum on national minority rights, claiming that that referendum "would never pass" as long as he was prime minister.

Asked by reporters to comment on the results of yesterday's referendum, Milanovic said that he could not comment on peoples' motives and why some people voted for, on something that was a private matter.

He added that the referendum in no way could be connected to the government's policies and that the law in Croatia did not define marriage in any other way than as a union between a man and a woman nor had anyone intended to change this.

Nothing in our policies is changing, we can only ask has any of this made any sense, but that's democracy, the prime minister said.

Asked whether everything had been done so that Sunday's referendum would not be held, Milanovic underscored that, pursuant to the Constitution yesterday's referendum "was allowable unfortunately" and that he believed that the "Constitution would soon be amended and that it would determine what sort of referenda would be possible."

He assessed that amendments to the Referenda Act could not have prevented the marriage referendum as the Constitution is above the law and the law just explains the constitutional provisions and that it was necessary to amend the Constitution with regard to provisions regulating referenda.

Yesterday's referendum is regrettable because I don't think we are any better now, more beautiful or smarter and we didn't decide anything but instead spent HRK 50 million even though there were many other more useful things that money could have been spent on, he said.

Asked by reporters what the latest novelty the bill on same sex unions would bring, the prime minister said that unions that will not be called marriage will be put on an equal footing in the legal and material sense as marriage, which includes the right to inheritance and other legal matters, which factually exists and all European states have.

He assessed that the law, which does not foresee the possibility of adopting children, represents a huge step forward in minority rights for same sex unions which had been announced in the pre-election platform and is now being enacted regardless of yesterday's referendum.

Asked if he expected that the Constitutional Court would react to the initiative for a referendum on national minority rights, PM Milanovic said that the court's reaction was not necessary as this was a much more serious issue as it was "open discrimination" and there is no need to "hide behind the Constitutional Court."

"There are certain boundaries over which we cannot tolerate pressure on minorities and we will not allow this. Croatia has for twenty years been building a system of rights and positive discrimination which represents social consensus and no signatures in this regard will discourage us. I consider this to be bad and that it is not a well-intentioned initiative which we will oppose with all legal means," Milanovic said.

He added that the Constitutional Court was not necessary in this matter as it is the "Croatian Sabor that adopts the Constitution and is authorised to interpret it, if it errs in that interpretation when it passes laws then the Constitutional Court has the right and obligation to react."

(Hina)



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