ZAGREB, 17 Feb 2022 - The Bridge party called on the government and Public Administration Minister Ivan Malenica on Thursday to count the 410,000 signatures the party collected for a referendum against COVID certificates and the national COVID crisis management team.

A representative of the referendum petitions, Iva Rem, told the press the signatures were delivered to parliament on 24 January and that nothing had happened since.

Bridge MP Marin Miletić said Malenica announced yesterday the counting would take 15 to 30 days. "I once again call on Malenica not to engage in shady deals, not to play games of deception. They need to organize the people and count those signatures."

He said 410,000 citizens requested a referendum and that if Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and "his gang" respect democracy and democratic processes, they will count the signatures and ensure the citizens' right to a referendum.

Miletić said "there is no reason for nervousness" in the government, "notably when you have citizens before you who want a referendum."

Living-away-from-home allowance for MPs should be objectively regulated

Asked if MPs should continue to get the living-away-from-home allowance, he said it was not the same if an MP lives in Split or Dubrovnik and comes to Zagreb for work three or four times a week and if an MP lives in Zagreb and gets to work in five or 15 minutes.

"I'm for everything to be regulated and objectively defined, and Croatian citizens should know what each MP does, how much they work, and what the scope of their work is," Miletić said. "Some of us are in the field on weekends even, some of us have crossed 49,000 kilometers by car in eight months and are doing their job properly."

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ZAGREB, 11 Feb 2022 - Parliament on Friday asked the government to verify the number and authenticity of the signatures collected for the Bridge party's referendum petitions to abolish COVID certificates and the crisis management team, and to include at least two representatives of each petition in the process.

The government was also asked to check if all the signatures were collected in line with the Referendum Act.

Parliament passed the relevant conclusions, proposed by the Committee on the Constitution, with 77 votes, while 32 MPs were against and 13 abstained.

Before the vote, parliament rejected amendments by Bridge and the Social Democratic Party to ask the State Electoral Commission, rather than the government, to verify the signatures in 30 days and the SDP proposal to establish a parliamentary task force, comprising three members from the opposition and four from the majority, to supervise the count.

Speaker Gordan Jandroković said recently he could not say how much the verification would take and that once the signatures had been counted, the process was back in parliament's hands.

If it is established that Bridge collected enough signatures, parliament can either call a referendum or ask the Constitutional Court to assess the referendum questions.

Bridge delivered the signatures to parliament on 24 January, saying they had collected 410,533 for the petition against COVID certificates and 409,219 against the national COVID crisis management team, more than the 368,867 required (10% of eligible voters) for a referendum to be called.

Bridge calls out majority for not allowing State Electoral Commission to count votes

Before today's vote, MP Marin Miletić of Bridge called out the ruling majority for not allowing the State Electoral Commission to count votes because "everyone would be sure in that case."

He appealed to the majority's conscience during the vote, telling them not to be afraid of citizens and to allow the referendum.

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ZAGREB, 3 Feb 2022 - The parliamentary Committee on the Constitution and Standing Orders on Thursday asked the government to verify the signatures collected for two referendum petitions by the opposition Bridge party and notify parliament.

The committee also asked the government to check if the signatures were collected in line with the valid Referendum Act.

The committee accepted Bridge president Božo Petrov's motion to include at least two representatives of each initiative in the signature counting.

One petition was for abolishing COVID certificates and the other for abolishing the national COVID crisis management team.

The committee did not accept a proposal to define a deadline for counting the signatures.

A reasonable deadline would be at least as long as it took Bridge to count the signatures, which is 30 days, Petrov had said.

The opposition was for tasking the State Electoral Commission with verifying the signatures as an independent body.

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December 21, 2021 - Constitutional expert Mato Palić believes that both issues that Most Party put to the COVID certificates referendum are unconstitutional, and as such will not pass.

Most party members said on Sunday that they had collected enough signatures for the referendum question, which touches on COVID certificates, and counting is now underway, reports Net.hr.

After all the signatures are counted, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia must decide whether the issue in the COVID certificates referendum is in accordance with the constitution, and constitutional expert Mato Palić told N1 television that there is nothing disputable in the COVID certificates.

"Judging by the previous practice of the Constitutional Court and the positions they have taken regarding the decisions of the Civil Protection Headquarters. There is very little chance, almost no chance, for them to make a Copernican turn, that is, to approach the restrictions of rights and freedoms in a different way. Especially taking into account the fact that we had stronger restrictions on rights and freedoms when we had a much better epidemiological picture'', Palic said.

"It is not realistic for them to completely change their position and make a decision that these existing restrictions are constitutionally disputable," he added.

So far, the Constitutional Court is acting correctly, claims Palić.

"The Constitutional Court interprets constitutional norms correctly. I don't think that the Constitutional Court has done anything so far, that is, it has made a decision that is disputable from the aspect of the correct interpretation of constitutional norms", he said and also touched on the Most initiative.

"Politicians always speak from the position of some kind of rhetoric in public space in a way that goes to their mill. What is undeniable is the fact that the Constitutional Court did not question the acts passed by the Headquarters, except for the part of the decision related to the ban on work on Sundays. As for the referendum itself, I think that both issues are unconstitutional, and the first one refers to the amendment of Article 17 and the second one refers to the amendments to the Law on Protection of the Population on Infectious Diseases ", he explained.

For more on COVID-19, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 20 Dec 2021 - Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković on Monday commented on claims about stolen referendums, saying that it is not good to create an atmosphere in which someone is accused of theft in advance.

"I wouldn't like the creation of an atmosphere in an attempt to impose the picture that someone has stolen signatures," he said on Croatian Radio.

"The organizers should show how many signatures they collected. It's important that this time the public is included in the process as well as possible in order to eliminate any doubts as to whether there are enough signatures or not," he said about the opposition Bridge party's collection of signatures for a referendum against COVID certificates.

Jandroković said that if Bridge had collected enough signatures as it claimed, he expected them to ask him to receive them so that they could hand him the request to call the referendum as well as the signatures.

Jandroković said he would send the request to the parliamentary committee on the constitution, which would debate it and then ask the government to check if enough signatures had been collected and then notify parliament.

If there are enough signatures, the committee adopts a conclusion either to call the referendum or to ask the Constitutional Court to say if the referendum question is in line with the constitution.

Jandroković said the important thing now was for Bridge to say how many signatures they have. "Creating an atmosphere in which they wish to say in advance, 'Yes, we have enough signatures but someone will steal them,' is not good. I'd call on everyone to be reasonable and for everything to be done as envisaged by the constitution and the law in a tolerant atmosphere."

Asked if parliament could meet Bridge's demand to include pandemics in Article 17 of the constitution, he said that it could but that it was too early to talk about it.

Asked to comment on President Zoran Milanović's claim that the authorities would probably try to rob Bridge of some signatures, Jandroković said it did not deserve a serious comment and that there was no evidence to back such a claim.

He would not comment on the president's statements about Bosnia and Herzegovina but did say that it was everyone's task to help the Croats in BiH.

Jandroković also said he expected the Constitutional Court to approve the COVID certificate mandate in healthcare and social welfare.

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