On 10 July 2024, Ombudswoman Tena Šimonović Einwalter participated in a session of the Committee on Human Rights and the Rights of National Minorities of the Croatian Parliament. The topics discussed were the project of the Croatian Law Centre titled “Improving Responses to Hate Speech through Legal Research, Advocacy and Training” and the Draft Law on the Central Population Register.
Participants in the session included, among others, Ivana Eterović from the Croatian Law Centre, legal scholars from the Faculty of Law in Zagreb, Maja Munivrana and Aleksandar Maršavelski, and Štefica Stažnik, the Republic of Croatia’s representative before the European Court of Human Rights.
The Ombudswoman welcomed the implementation of the project on hate speech, emphasizing that legal and expert analyses assist in addressing this issue. Referring to the results of the analysis of judicial practice and the presented recommendations, the Ombudswoman stated that the material is a welcome contribution and will be useful to the institution in its work, including within the working group for drafting the Law on Misdemeanours Against Public Order and Peace.
She noted that aside from the current legal framework regulating this matter in Croatia, and despite the absence of a universally accepted international legal definition of hate speech, there are definitions relevant to Croatia within EU law, as well as recent definitions adopted within the Council of Europe. Additionally, she highlighted the continuously evolving case law of the European Court of Human Rights in this field.
The Ombudswoman also presented the most recent data on public expression from the 2023 Annual Report of the Ombudswoman, indicating a continued trend of frequent inappropriate, and in some cases unlawful, communication in both virtual and physical spaces, with social media posing a particular concern due to the volume of such speech. Speaking about hate speech in a broader, non-criminal law context, she pointed out that the communication of public figures is also problematic, as their statements may have harmful consequences by spreading more rapidly than those of individuals with less public visibility, potentially leading to discrimination and other negative effects.
She further presented data from the analysis of judicial practice in discrimination-related cases, also included in the 2023 Annual Report of the Ombudswoman. She emphasized that only the most severe forms of hate speech should be criminally prosecuted. Given the sheer volume of diverse comments, monitoring social media presents a specific challenge, while recognizing such acts and consistently establishing the boundary between misdemeanour and criminal hate speech can also be complex. She also highlighted that the greatest ambiguity currently lies in the area of misdemeanour offences, necessitating improved regulation and consistent prosecution and sanctioning.
Addressing the improvements she advocates, the Ombudswoman stressed that alongside better regulation—especially the amendment of Article 5 of the Law on Misdemeanours Against Public Order and Peace—there is a need to raise awareness of what is prohibited by law in public spaces, which is also one of the recommendations from the 2023 Annual Report of the Ombudswoman.