8 December 2017 - President of the Constitutional Court, Dr Miroslav Šeparović, gave a lecture to students of the Split Faculty of Law on the case-law of the Croatian Constitutional Court regarding protection of the right to property. He initially explained the reasons for abandoning the system of collectivistic regulation of property and introducing, after Croatia gained independence, a new legal system grounded on the individualistic principle, and referred to difficulties in application of the 1997 Real Property Act. He further talked about the role of the Croatian Constitutional Court in developing the standards of protection of the constitutionally guaranteed property right, from defining the notion "property", i.e., "possessions", to the constitutional definition of the "protection of property". While talking about the role of the Constitutional Court in its protection he also emphasised its pioneer role in applying the Convention law, given that immediately after the European Convention on Human Rights entered into force in Croatia (1997), the Court found it a part of the Croatian legal order. He concluded that the Constitutional Court recent case-law on interpretation of the relevant Constitutional text on the property right has been under considerable influence of the European Court of Human Rights case-law, which has, however, not been taken uncritically, but further developed and provided with the new content and meaning stemming from the Croatian Constitution and our legal tradition and culture.
