Zagreb - The Croatian Parliament on Friday voted in amendments to the Act on Public Order and Peace Offences, drastically increasing fines for misdemeanors which now can amount to as much as €4,000, with 77 MPs voting in favour and 50 against.
The gravest misdemeanors, including the use of symbols and salutes that express or incite hatred, including, for example, "For the Homeland, Ready", as well as the dissemination of fake news, will be fined between €700 and 4,000.
Fines for grave misdemeanors, such as fighting and quarreling in a public space, impersonation and the unauthorised use of police symbols, will range between €300 and 2,000.
Offending citizens' moral sense and drinking alcohol and using drugs in public places would carry a fine of between €200 and 1,000.
MP: Law amended because of Jasenovac commemoration
The parliament amended the law under fast-track procedure, which was criticised by both the left and the right opposition, which insisted that the law was amended at the request of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), the HDZ's coalition partner, ahead of Sunday's commemoration at Jasenovac, the site of a WWII Ustasha concentration camp.
"This is being made for the sake of the commemoration, for the sake of a single (commemorative) column, and Milorad Pupovac said clearly that the (amendments) refer to the salute 'For the Homeland, Ready'," Stipo Mlinarić of the Homeland Movement said during the debate in which a number of warnings were issued because of MPs trading insults.
MP Ružica Vukovac (Righteous Croatia) agreed with Mlinarić's view, adding that she would not be surprised if the next move of the ruling coalition would be to remove "the first, white field on the Croatian coat-of-arms on the roof of (Zagreb's) St. Mark's Church."
Nino Raspudić (Bridge) said the law was "worrying" and that it was a prelude to future totalitarianism and repression.
Željko Sačić (Croatian Sovereignists) said the law was profoundly unconstitutional and violated the principles of the rule of law and the legal security of citizens.
It is completely unclear which songs, images and symbols are punishable, he said, adding that his party would ask the president of the republic not to sign it.
SDP MP: Compromise approach
Social Democratic Party MP Arsen Bauk said the amendments were a compromise solution, which "we, descendants of the Partisans, have never supported."
The amended law was passed in a deficient democratic procedure and the Constitutional Court should annul it for pedagogical reasons, he said.
Ruling HDZ party MP Nikola Madžar said that the purpose of the amendments was deterrence and prevention, and security for citizens and property.
The fines for misdemeanors are being harmonised with those in other laws, the substance of the law is not being changed and no new offence is being introduced, he said.
Government officials in previous days said that the amendments to the Act on Public Order and Peace Offences were not about defining new offences but only increasing fines for the existing ones, and that the purpose was to prevent the repetition of the same offences.
As for MPs' remarks that a new law should have been adopted instead of amending the current, 46-year-old one, they said that an interdepartmental task force had been set up to draw up a new law on public order and peace offences.