Omissions in the Implementation of Public Consultations in the Procedure of Adopting General Acts Through the Practice of the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia

Abstract

Croatian local and regional self-government units are obliged to conduct public consultations when adopting general acts that affect the interests of citizens and legal entities. Bearing that in mind, the aim of this paper is to determine whether there are certain omissions – confirmed by the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia – in the implementation of public consultations in the procedure of adopting general acts and, if there are, what they consist of. To this aim, the paper analyzes the decisions of the mentioned Court in procedures for assessing the legality of general acts adopted by local and regional self-government units. After the first introductory part, the second part briefly explains the normative framework, the third part states the methodology used, the fourth part analyzes the judicial practice, and in the fifth part, concluding remarks are stated. The analysis shows that since 2013, when the obligation to conduct public consultation was introduced, the Court has abolished 11 general acts. In the process of adopting those acts, the public consultation procedure was not conducted in accordance with the law: the first and the most common reason for contesting the general act was the absence of public consultation, and the second reason for that was non-compliance with the prescribed deadline of 30 days. Although practice has shown some other reasons as well, they all boil down to the fact that public consultation was not conducted.