On Tuesday, October 1, 2013, a roundtable discussion on the proposal for a new Family Law was held, organized by the Committee for Family, Youth and Sports in the Croatian Parliament. Due to the overwhelming public interest, some interested parties were unable to participate, but in the end, the seats reserved for representatives from several committees remained empty.
The law that affects all citizens in the Republic of Croatia will obviously be evaluated solely according to party affiliation, so the representatives do not even have to listen to the debate because they know in advance what position they will take. This was evident in the presentations of several of those present, especially the party colleagues of the law's proponent, Milanka Opačić - the SDP recites its praises wholeheartedly and without reservation. Although the existing Family Law is also their child from 2003.
After the introductory speeches by Minister Opačić and the president of the Working Group for the Drafting of the Family Law, Branka Rešetar, we learned nothing about the law itself. Opačić only claimed that the law is necessary because we are losing disputes at the European Court, and the money for the implementation of the new Law will be provided by the savings of the Republic of Croatia, which will be realized because it will no longer lose a single dispute. The fact, which has already been repeated several times in public, that we are not losing disputes because of a bad law, but because the competent institutions are not implementing it properly, she clearly did not accept as an argument worthy of her attention. Namely, in only one dispute, related to the establishment of paternity, part of an article had to be changed. The story about savings therefore also "does not hold water", because any positive effects could only be felt in 3-5 years. How all the activities required by the New Law will be financed until then remains unclear. At the same time as the proponent claims that the money for the project has been secured, it is learned that the monthly supervision fees have been reduced from a paltry 500.00 to 100.00 kuna!!! We can only assume how professionally this demanding task will be performed for a fee of 100.00 kuna.
On the other hand, the head of the working group Rešetar spoke exclusively about her scientific competence and presented herself with praise - from one foreign expert and one expert in nomotechnics. Along the way, she was getting into arguments with older colleagues from the Department of Family Law at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb. She probably didn't need to talk about the law because her academic excellence obviously, in her opinion, also ensures the quality of the law.
The discussion, which lasted three and a half hours, was attended by more than 30 people - from various professions and backgrounds, from experts from the academic community, lawyers, the Office of the Ombudsman, former employees of the Ministry of Family, veterans and intergenerational solidarity, to representatives of numerous associations and citizens. And in the end, everyone could hear the same thing, regardless of their ideological affiliations or ethical standards - the Draft Family Law is too extensive, confusing, incomplete and poorly worded. The text is difficult for experts to understand, and completely incomprehensible for average citizens whose destinies they will decide on and whose private lives they will interfere with.
Praise was expressed only by members of the Working Group, two SDP MPs, and one lawyer who had not had much to do with the Family Law in his work up until that point, so he didn't actually say anything about the Law, but he is, we admit, skilled at making political speeches.
The entire discussion, despite the numerous criticisms that were expressed, was extremely polite and tolerant. Numerous arguments were presented by participants who do not support this new Family Law and often question the very need for its adoption.
The peaceful discussion reached its peak in Minister Opačić's final speech. She began it by stating that the roundtable reminded her of a situation in which a student sees that the reading material has many pages and decides not to read it (roughly paraphrasing her words)... So, esteemed professors, numerous experts, are, in her opinion, lazy and bad students who couldn't bear to read a brilliant text because of its length, and therefore cannot even reasonably explain why they oppose such a brilliant proposal.
After these words from an overbearing person who has no evidence of any kind of competence in her biography, except, of course, that of staying afloat in the ruthless political arena, the author of the text reacted loudly, claiming that Milanka Opačić was rude, and then left the courtroom.
The three and a half hour discussion was soon concluded, in which those who should have heard almost nothing, and understood even less, because their sense of personal importance and power prevented them from understanding the words of those who did not blindly follow them.
And citizens are not important in the whole story anyway.
