30 November 2018 - President of the Court, Dr Miroslav Šeparović, gave a lecture to students of the Law Faculty of the Split University about the institute of preliminary procedure and relations of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia with the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). At the beginning he pointed out that, unlike with the 20-year-application of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court, the application of the EU law is in Croatia only at its outset. In his lecture he reminded the students of the CJEU jurisdiction related to the institute of preliminary procedure stemming from Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and indicated importance of this institute for securing uniform application and interpretation of EU law. He further addressed relations of national constitutional courts with the CJEU and accompanying challenges, and highlighted that increased engagement of constitutional courts in the European constitutional dialogue has been shifting the CJEU's focus toward the protection of fundamental (human) rights. As for the Constitutional Court of Croatia he maintained that forwarding not one preliminary question so far does not show the Court's disinclination to such dialog grounded on the mutual cooperation and trust and based on the common European values, as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
