Le contrôle de constitutionnalité des référendums en Croatie
Le contrôle de constitutionnalité des référendums en Croatie

Summary/Abstract: In Croatia, the control of the constitutionality of state referendums is within the competence of the Constitutional Court. Upon request of the Parliament of Republic of Croatia, when 10% of the total of voters from Republic of Croatia required the organization of a referendum, the Constitutional Court may appreciate if the content of the referendum question corresponds to the Constitution and if the constitutional conditions of its organization are accomplished. On the occasion of the citizens’ initiative to organize a referendum on the definition of marriage (2013), the only referendum held so far in Croatia upon a citizens’ initiative, the Constitutional Court has delivered the following interpretation in a press release: “However, with regard to the constituent power of the Parliament of Republic of Croatia, as supreme legislative and representative body of the state, the Constitutional Court considers itself to be bound to make use of general powers of control merely in an exceptional manner, should it recognize the existence of a formal and/or substantial unconstitutionality of the referendum issue or of a procedural which poses a menace for the structural characteristics of the Croatian constitutional state, in other words its constitutional identity, which includes the supreme values of the constitutional order of Republic of Croatia (article 1 and article 3 from the Constitution). The primary protection of these values must not exclude the power of the constituent authority to exclude in an explicit manner any other questions of the authorized referendum issues.

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