SDP: New Proposal of the Family Law to the Detriment of Children

Due to the new proposal of the Family Law, the SDP held an extraordinary press conference on Friday, highlighting that it concerns poor solutions that harm children, favor the lawyer lobby, and cater to interest groups around the HDZ.

Members of the SDP working group for social policy and demography, Ivana Posavec Krivec and Mišel Jakšić, expressed their concern about the new draft law which, according to Jutarnji list, has recently been sent for comments to HDZ’s coalition partners, stating that extramarital and marital unions are no longer equal and that parents have the right to educate their children according to their religious beliefs.

Posavec Krivec: Divorce Complicated and More Expensive

Among the novelties is that parents of minor children will again initiate divorce proceedings in court, which implies re-engaging lawyers and at least one more hearing per divorce.

>>>HURR: Proposed Family Law Undermines the Rights of Children and Parents

Posavec Krivec pointed out that divorce is becoming more complicated and expensive, which is detrimental to the child. She warned that the previous practice of initiating divorce at social welfare centers has doubled the number of amicable agreements regarding child custody, making it unclear what reasons the government has for making such changes.

She asked who will benefit from the new law considering that the special guardian, assigned to children during a contentious divorce, will no longer be free but will be paid for by the parents at the lawyer’s rate.

Mišel Jakšić accused Prime Minister Andrej Plenković of “erasing civil and civilizational achievements,” with the Family Law, along with educational reform and the Istanbul Convention, being one of the most obvious examples.

Jakšić: HDZ Caters to Certain Interest Groups

According to Jakšić, the new Family Law indicates that HDZ “caters to certain interest groups and suggests that they will look into the citizens’ bedrooms and categorize them into first and second-class citizens.”

These are ugly messages, Jakšić assessed, and asked how far Plenković is willing to go in erasing human rights to gather votes from part of the right.

>>>SDP Recognizes ‘Totalitarianism in the Shameful Family Law’

He asked HDZ’s coalition partners from HNS how they allow a “mini-conservative revolution that sneaks in through the back door.”

Comments were also posted on social media by SDP President Davor Bernardić and SDP members of parliament.

“Minister Murganić is taking us back to the Middle Ages with the proposal of the new Family Law. We have the right to the family we want. You will not take it away from us. All families are equally valuable. Children must be provided with quality education based on science,” Bernardić wrote on Twitter.

SDP’s Arsen Bauk warns on Facebook that this is “violence against families” that SDP members will try to prevent by all democratic means.

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Grbin: Plenković’s Government is Implementing a “Conservative Revolution”

Peđa Grbin assesses that “this proposal of the law, just like pushing Glunčić to head the ERS for curricular reform, is living proof that Plenković’s Government and HDZ are neither moderate nor centrist, and especially are not a barrier to the conservative revolution.”

“On the contrary, Plenković and his HDZ are the ones pushing and implementing that revolution and taking this country back decades,” Grbin posted on Facebook.

Bojan Glavašević stated on Twitter that SDP will certainly seek a constitutional review if such a law, which clearly reduces the achieved level of rights for LGBT persons in Croatia, is passed in the Parliament. He tells the Prime Minister to “decide whether he wants to build a modern or a Paleolithic Croatia.”

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The new draft law sent for comments to HDZ’s coalition partners is the second attempt by Plenković’s Government to amend family legislation: the first proposal of the Family Law was sent for public discussion at the end of September last year but was withdrawn after less than 24 hours – primarily due to the definition of family which was very narrow and exclusively related to children, so that couples without children did not constitute a family by that definition.

The new version does not contain the controversial definition of family that led the Prime Minister to urgently withdraw the previous proposal from the procedure.