ПРАКСА УСТАВНОГ СУДА РЕПУБЛИКЕ ХРВАТСКЕ У ОБЛАСТИ ПРАВА НАЦИОНАЛНИХ МАЊИНА, СА ПОСЕБНИМ ОСВРТОМ НА ЈЕЗИЧКА ПРАВА СРПСКЕ ЗАЈЕДНИЦЕ У ХРВАТСКОЈ

In the period from 2000 to the present day, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia has often faced the challenge of deciding on politically sensitive topics, especially when it comes to the need to protect the rights of both traditional and so-called “new” minority communities (which emerged from the constituent nations of the former Yugoslavia by the formation of new independent nation-states). The cases that occur in court practice are diverse, but mainly refer to cultural autonomy, representation of persons belonging to national minorities in local or regional representative bodies and equal representation in the public sector, as well as (official) use of language and script. The submitters of constitutional complaints, and the initiators of the procedures for assessing the constitutionality and legality of general legal acts, were guided by various motives; and the question is whether these motives influenced the work of the constitutional court, or in other words, whether the court remained faithful to its original role of protecting the basic, timeless values of the constitutional order of Croatia or was guided by current party policy programs. In addition to the general presentation of the legal regulation of minority rights, and the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court in Croatia, the paper analyzes cases related to the language rights of “new” minority communities, focusing on the arguments of both “parties” in the procedure and the constitutional court, as well. The goal of this paper is to present the practice of the Constitutional Court of Croatia in the field of language rights of national minorities through specific constitutional court cases, with special reference to the consistency of the court’s argumentation.