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In Croatia, October 8 is established as a memorial day – the Day of the Croatian Parliament – to commemorate the date when in 1991 the Parliament of the Republic of Croatia unanimously passed the Decision to Sever All State and Legal Ties Between the Republic of Croatia and the Former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY).
The Parliament thereby decided that the Republic of Croatia no longer considered legitimate and legal any authority of the former SFRY, and that it no longer recognized as valid any legal act issued by any authority acting on behalf of the former federation, which no longer existed as such.
The Parliament adopted this important decision the day after the expiration of a three-month moratorium on the Croatian Constitutional Decision on Independence and Sovereignty, which was passed by the Parliament on June 25, 1991. The entry into force of this Decision was then postponed for three months pursuant to the Brioni Declaration of 7 July, i.e. at the request made by the European Community with a view to try to resolve the Yugoslav crisis peacefully. On the same day when the moratorium on Croatia's Decision on Independence expired, the planes of the Yugoslav People’s Army bombed the historic centre of Zagreb and Banski dvori, the building which housed the state leadership led by President Franjo Tuđman.
In such circumstances and as a safeguard against possible new air attacks on Zagreb, the historic session of all three parliamentary chambers on 8 October 1991 was not held in the building of Parliament but on another location in Zagreb (29, Šubićeva street).
Until the entry into force of the new Law on Holidays, Memorial Days and Non-working Days in the Republic of Croatia on 1 January 2020, 8 October was celebrated as a national holiday – Independence Day.