Zagreb weekly 'Tjednik' brought in its issue of December 19, 1997 an overview by Vlado Rajic on the most recent changes in the Croatian constitution and the politics behind them.
All 75 representatives of the ruling HDZ party were in the hall when the voting for the constitutional changes was on the agenda. Of course, they voted 'for', so that the wish of their party leader to conduct a reform if the Constitution on the basis of his own proposal before the 7 Anniversary of its introduction. Joining this number were 11 other representatives of a wide variety of party and non - party affiliations.
Simply said, what was in motion was the application of such voting legality which, by simple majority voted in major constitutional changes, without taking into consideration the absurdity that citizens of other states are voting about the Croatian Constitution, that people have been shamelessly bought, and the fact that the Serb Community in Croatia denied the 86th vote 'for' of its representative Milorad Pupovac.
This whole pragmatic circus completely overshadowed the reasons behind the changes in the Constitution. Tudjman's explanation, full of big words about changed political and strategic conditions, about international politics, bout Croatia which deserves a reformed constitutional text in the disparity of lexic - pragmatic - historic new elements, which did not touch any important point of the constitutional system, satisfying itself in simple underlining of independence, sovereignty and international subjectivity of the state.
No doubt about it, Article 140, which mentions already forgotten connections of Croatia with the federal state should have been stricken. But, this is the only point where, in accordance to the President's proposal, the reasons for the change and the content meet at a rational point. Everything else is pure symbolics with far reaching consequences. The speculation in connection with the fact whether the term Croatian State Sabor /Parliament/ is a NDH /WWII Crotian - Nazi backed state/ particularity or not, reminds of the former discussion about the name of the national currency - Kuna. Viewed from a constitutional - legal point, insistence at the statehood in the name of the parliament could imply also complete novelties in the mandate of the representatives, through that, in electoral rules too, and then in the status of the representatives.
This since the state connotation ahead of the name of the body which understands the representation of the people could lead to stratifiction of a basic democratic value, the triad of authority in which the legislator (the house of representatives) is completely equal with the executive power (president and the government), as well as the judicial. As a warning, a fact should be mentioned that dr. Franjo Tudjman wants to describe himself with the sintagm state head, even though the Croatian Constitution does not use this term, but rather President of the Republic.
Similar shallowness is suggested by the change in Article 14, in which the term citizen has been dropped and replaced by man, while still, at the end of the exposition, this article has been ornamented also with this dropped term. From one norm (Article 14), only the first paragraph is read (the reformed one), but not the second one, which exactly states that 'all are equal in face of the law'. The essence is in the fact that through the equality in the face of the law a basic determination of the civic society is being fulfilled, and this then puts in a relative sense the terms man and citizen. But, for this matter too it could be focused why the proposed changes. There is no certainty that it is a question of simple transcribing of terms from the 'European Convention on Human Rights'. Closer to the truth is the estimate that it is actually another attempt to quiet down through a change the charge of civic and civil society at the expense of the national state and all consequences of establishing the system based on that criteria. Since all that falls under the values of the former is easily modelled on the ethnic criteria with the insistence that this threatens the well being of the nation, and what is even more important, the stability of the national leadership. And it is exactly the stability of this regime, all that could be modelled through the electoral law, through the use of the levers of power which are placed in exactly recognizable hands, the source of financing of both mechanisms and so on.
The third big thing in the constitutional debate, was the striking, firstly, of all national minorities from the constitution, and then return of a part of them, which is a result of a particular voting deal with the bearers of the voting rights of these same minorities.
All in all, what is at hand here is proving state might at the point which is the softest and which, no matter what the outcome, can bring least of damage.
A lot of attention has been devoted to the change of the term republic with the term state. The explanation that this is denial of association of the term republic as a member of a former federation is childish and cannot convince anybody serious that this is what is actually at hand. The term republic signifies the form of state system - and has no connection with the former fate of this state. If the republic is stricken and is replaced with state, that something else is at hand. At the speculative level, this could mean that the complete strengthening of the state is conducted even on a relatively benign constitutional term, but also opens the possibility that the state is organized as it pleases the ruling structure.