Draft Constitutional Amendments Defined

AIM Zagreb, July 7, 2000

After big storms, some of them in a teacup, and some, indeed, at open political sea, the procedure for the amendment of the Constitution has been initiated in Croatia. The main starting point for that was set by the now ruling coalition of six parties before the January elections, while they were still in the opposition, when it was adopted by acclamations that Tudjman's rigid, "semi-presidential" system should be dismantled and the country organised by the model of parliamentary democracies.

In harmony with that, the government of Ivica Racan has recently come up with the draft of Constitutional amendments, pursuant which the backbone of the new political system would be significantly redefined relations between the three branches of power. The government would not be responsible to the president of the Republic as in the past ten years, but to the assembly which for the first time should acquire the characteristics of a real parliament. This would greatly strengthen the position of the government as well, for which it is, by mere logic, much easier to cooperate with the parliament which consists of representatives of parties that formed it than with the head of the state who does not belong to any party.

As opposed to that, the Constitutional role of the president of the Republic is significantly reduced in relation to that prescribed by the so-called Christmas constitution which was cut by measure of general Franjo Tudjman. Nevertheless, the head of the state will continue to have comparatively broad duties and responsibilities, broader than Czech president, for instance, but especially broader than Slovenian president, and they can be compared with those of Austrian president. Croatian president would continue to be the commander of armed forces, he would represent the country abroad and nominate heads of some of the secret services.

But since the president would be elected directly, which means that he would not be politically responsible to the parliament, his power would be limited by the fact that majority of his decisions would have to be co-signed by the prime minister. By that mere fact as well as by certain special duties the constitutional jurisdiction of the government would be broadened both in internal and in foreign policy. On the other hand, as supervision of the government would be transferred to the parliament, its power would also be increased, so that the parliament would obtain increased possibility of control of armed forces and secret services.

As this shows, it is not a case of classical division of power but of its parts supplementing each other and of a balance between them, which is following in the footsteps of good examples of constitutional law in the world. However, as soon as the government draft had appeared in public, there were critical comments on some of the solutions, primarily because conditions were not specified under which the president of the Republic could dissolve the parliament when prime minister proposed it, so that it turns out that any immediate cause might be used for that. But, not even the biggest opposition party, Croat Democratic Community (HDZ), criticised the main change, that is, the transfer of power from the powerful head of the state to the government and the assembly.

This shows that for the first time after 1990, Croatia is more or less generally united in the resoluteness to have its political system changed. But in the general climate which accompanies these constitutional amendments - which should soon be ratified by the assembly in order to be passed by the end of the year - there is no change. It is still marked by already standard tensions between the two main protagonists of executive power, Stipe Mesic and Ivica Racan who formally belong to the same political group in power but who are in fact representatives of different state policies.

After the announcement that the government would come out with draft Constitutional amendments, Mesic protested via media because he had not been informed about their content although he had informed the government with his proposal of Constitutional amendments as soon as it had been completed. This criticism is rather of principled nature because there are no essential differences between the two proposals, except that Mesic's team of constitutional experts believed that the assembly should consist of a single chamber, but he immediately declared that he would not insist on it. But, Mesic's critical comment on the government proposal is part of the already customary defiant parades of both parties which is a form of regular weighing out of forces between the two groups, his and Racan's.

The former, Mesic's group consists of the parties of, conditionally speaking, the centre and left centre, and the latter parties of the centre and the right centre. The differences between them are not so big that one could call them an abyss which is best confirmed by the content of constitutional amendments. But they do exist and what is most important they are not getting any smaller and they come down to the attitude to the speed and depth of changes in the post-Tudjman's era. Racan is, if one may say so, a firm reformist fond of policy of small steps around which he gathered the biggest parties of the ruling coalition. The rest of the coalition gathered around Mesic who is handicapped by the fact that it consists of smaller parties, but they are comparatively homogeneous, so that there are even rumours about their readiness to unite.

Nevertheless, the main trump card of these parties is Mesic himself, who is a slightly superficial jovial person who certainly will not lose any of his penetrating power and innovativeness the others do not, even with reduced constitutional power. Mesic has used the secrecy of the government draft constitutional amendments to start a strong counter-attack and, according to the already recognisable tactics, this put him in an offensive situation. He accused the ruling coalition of violating the Constitution simultaneously with initiating constitutional amendments, because important decisions are not reached in regular institutions of the system, but at closed meetings of the so-called coordination of the ruling six political parties.

Mesic is especially annoyed by the way in which the management posts in public enterprises are filled, that is by the fact that leading positions in them are distributed by "trading among parties" and not by public competitions. Although he avoided open confrontation and did not say who he had in mind, it is generally known that Budisa's party of rightist Liberals HSLS, which is in many ways the key member of the ruling coalition, blazes the trail in this sense. The biggest party in the coalition, Racan's SDP chose it for its partner because of Budisa's influence among moderate rightists, and lately even among rightists proper, so that SDP and HSLS together form the Croatian variant of Social Democratic Liberal ideology of the "third road" which is nowadays predominant in the world.

Budisa hardly ever shows any interest for this ideological mixture, but he is aware that without his party it would not be possible (short lasting contacts between Racan and Left Liberals of Vlado Gotovac have been interrupted a long time ago). That is why he is striving to profiteer from it by having the largest possible number of his supporters nominated at the leading posts in public enterprises. This annoys Mesic not only because it deprives minor parties of the Left Centre inclining towards him of every privilege, but also because he sometimes considers nomination of supporters of HSLS's members a direct obstacle to certain projects he himself was engaged in lately (reorientation from import of Russian gas to that from the Caspian Sea).

Racan cannot be satisfied with the behavior of HSLS either, although he does not speak about it in public, but it is evident that he has lately kept the door open for Mesic as well. The sparks that flew concerning the government draft of Constitutional amendments were extinguished by lunch that Mesic and Racan had together and the agreement that these two initiate Constitution amendments by their two signatures. This brought their relations into the position of stable disbalance, and this can be considered a significant progress in current Croatian circumstances.

Marinko Culic

(AIM)