by Vedran Pavlic
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26 December 2015
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The Women’s Network of Croatia has announced that it expected that the Constitutional Court will not accept the proposal of the Croatian Movement for Life, filed 24 years ago, to institute proceedings to review the constitutionality of the law which allows abortion.
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The Women’s Network sent a letter to the president and members of the Constitutional Court after it received information that the Constitutional Court is ready to discuss the proposal, which was submitted by the Croatian Movement for Life in 1991, to review the constitutionality of the Law on Health Care Measures for the Implementation of the Right to Decide on Childbirth.
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The letter reminds the Court that the Law is based on the provisions of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and states that the Convention expresses concern about the impact of religion on the secular character of state and laws. The Women’s Network says that it hopes that the Constitutional Court will take into account the Council of Europe resolution “Women and Religions in Europe” and will not allow the call for a ban on abortion rights, which comes from the ranks of the Catholic Church, to affect the constitutional and legal system in Croatia.
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“We expect that the Constitutional Court will not accept the proposal to institute proceedings to review the constitutionality of the Law, because Article 3 of the Constitution proclaims gender equality and respect for human rights as one of the highest values of the constitutional system of the Republic of Croatia. Concerned with the increasingly frequent attacks on women’s human rights, members of the Women’s Network ask the Constitutional Court to examine the effects of the contracts signed between the Holy See and the Republic of Croatia, and to prepare a special report on the matter of whether these agreements are in line with the Constitution” , the letter said.