The decision of the Parliament not to accept the Ombudsman's Report for 2015 is a direct blow by the ruling party to human rights and the rule of law. The Human Rights House condemns in the strongest terms this political attack on the Ombudsman's independence.
We have already witnessed an attack on independent institutions. A few months ago it was the Council for Electronic Media, and today it is the Ombudsman, and this is done solely for the purpose of expanding the sphere of political control. The independence of the human rights protection system is an essential part of democracy and an open and tolerant society that has been painstakingly built for many years and whose independence was a condition for EU membership.
Citizens certainly did not give Parliament a mandate for this. Politicians, your task is to expand the space of freedom and human rights, not to destroy it!
The House of Human Rights warns of an alarming situation in which the parliamentary majority advocates a position in which the meaning of protecting human rights in society is not the protection of diversity and minorities, but exclusively the protection of the majority. It is unpleasant to imagine what could begin to happen to the already disrupted system of human rights protection in Croatia after the highest legislative body – by adopting reactionary rhetoric – clearly expressed the majority's contempt for the very concept of human rights. With this act, Croatia has unequivocally continued to implement the idea of Orbán's Hungary about illiberal democracy, which is nothing more than the hegemony of the majority over all who think and act freely.
