Milchakova, O.V. Law and politics in the activities of the Constitutional Court of Croatia

Abstract: The article is devoted to one of the topical current issues: correlation of law and politics in the activities of the Constitutional Court of Croatia. The studies of various aspects of the relevant problems is based upon the studies of the constitutional legal status and practice of the Constitutional Court in the Republic of Croatia. Croatia joined the European Union just recently (from July 1, 2013). The date when the mandates of half of the judges of the Constitutional Court of Croatia expires (2015) is drawing near, and the legislation allows the parliament to elect the same persons for the positions of constitutional judges for a new term. In such a situation, it is quite interesting to follow the practical activities of the Constitutional Court in order to establish whether the Court is capable of being sufficiently independent of politics dealing solely with legal matters in the process of constitutional control. In the course of the analysis of constitutional legal status and practice of the Constitutional Court the author mostly used formal legal, comparative legal and statistical methods. The article provides a complex evaluation of the legislative constructions provided in Croatia, which on the one hand are aimed at guaranteeing political neutrality of the Constitutional Court, while on the other hand providing the Court with the possibility to directly interfere in the political discussions. The author drew her conclusions on the correlation between law and politics in the activities of the Constitutional Court based on a number of “headline-making cases”, such as “On Sexual Education”, “On Obligatory Vaccination”, “On Medical Fertilization”, “On Prohibition of Same-Sex Marriages”.

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