Nacional has learned from well informed sources that Croatia found itself in a paradoxical situation early this year, and that the assessment by the OSCE Mission in BiH and its then head Robert M. Beecroft in part was dependant on the future policy of the Government regarding Serbian minority rights and, in the wider definition of the Croatian legal system, as well as the Croatian policy towards the Serbian minority during the Patriotic War. In early 2003, OSCE became involved in the case on the return of tenant rights for Kristina Blečić, which was ongoing against the Republic of Croatia before the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Ten days ago, the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg rejected the request by Kristina Blečić in her lawsuit against the Republic of Croatia. In her opinion, the state had violated her resident rights when the competent court in Zadar rescinded her tenancy rights on 9 October 1992, thus creating a precedent for the resolution of future cases. The problem of tenancy rights in Croatia appeared already in 1990, when many Croatian citizens of Serbian nationality left the flat in which they had tenancy rights. Tenancy rights, which is not ownership but protected right of usage and according to the old Yugoslav laws, could be taken away if the tenant was not in the flat for over six months and if s/he did not pay rent. In the early 1990s when Croatia was attack, a large number of people of the Serbian minority left their homes and the courts ordered the tenancy rights be terminated. Those Serbs later sought the return of their tenancy rights, justifying their departure as a result of the war situation; however, to date all of these requests have been rejected, including the case by Kristina Blečić, which was then taken before the European Court of Human Rights.

All of the competent Croatian courts ruled in favor of Croatia before she decided to take her case to Strasbourg – the Municipal Court in Zadar, the Zadar County Court, the Croatian Supreme Court in 1996 and the Constitutional Court ruled on 8 November 1999 that the Supreme Court had made a just ruling. This case, which has a deep background, has been in the Croatian media for years. In reviewing the verdict, Nacional became interested in a third party in the case Blečić v. Croatia – the OSCE, which became involved in the role of “friend of the court” through the OSCE Mission in BiH, and later through its Mission in Zagreb. Furthermore, Nacional has learned through a high ranking source that the involvement of the OSCE came at the initiative of the Netherlands, which at that time was presiding over the OSCE Standing Council, without going through the regular consensus decision-making process involving all members, as is the regular procedure for that organization. Of course, the question arises as to what is going on here, what does the OSCE of a neighbouring country have to do with this case and whose interests is the OSCE Mission representing – the interests of the organization or of the current presiding state.

Nacional has come to learn the details of the entire story through several well informed sources. At that time, head of the OSCE Mission in BiH, Robert M. Beecroft submitted a request to the European Court for Human Rights, behind Croatia’s back, for the OSCE Mission to appear in the cases Blečić v. Croatia as a third party, the famous amicus curiae or “friend of the court”. The European Court accepted that request on 25 March 2003. After the authorized bodies in Croatia learned what was going on, they tried to investigate the background of the case, at first informally. The first response from Vienna, where the seat of the OSCE is, was that this was not true. After some time and proof from the Croatian side, the informal response from Vienna was that “Beecroft is up to something”. Not long afterwards, the authorized bodies in Croatia learned that Peter Semneby, head of the OSCE Mission in Croatia, just like OSCE BiH, had prepared a ten page report by which they would become involved in the case, again by the instructions of the Netherlands, according to Nacional’s source. At that point, the Foreign Ministry sent a diplomatic note to the OSCE, posing the question as to whom Beecroft and Semneby were representing and whose opinion was contained within their reports: the Council of Ministers, the Standing Council or certain members. They also requested a meeting with the organization’s General Secretary, Slovak diplomat Jan Kubiš.

A response to the note arrived in Zagreb after a full two months, and it officially explained that the request to become involved in the legal proceedings was legitimate and within the mandate of the OSCE, and that everything had been done on orders by the presiding state. Unofficially, as Nacional has learned, the General Secretary stated that he was very sorry for the entire situation, but strong pressures had been applied upon both himself and the heads of the Missions. It is worthwhile noting that the OSCE General Secretary is not the organization’s policy creator, as is the General Secretary of the UN or NATO, but only its prime administration, such that he has no truly great decision-making power.

At that time, Croatia had two options – to formally question the justification of such conduct and the opinion contained with the OSCE reports before the organization’s Standing Council, which is comprised of 55 member states including Croatia, and which makes decisions on a consensus basis, or to ignore the situation and hope for a positive outcome. The decision was made to hope for the best and was primarily the result of the political situation Croatia was in. The Croatian Government assessed that formally addressing the issue would lead to disagreement in the OSCE Standing Council, and thus Croatia would create enemies within the OSCE.

In the second half of 2003 and the first half of 2004, at the time the case was unfolding, Croatia was in a sensitive political situation both on the home front due to the parliamentary elections, as well as on the international front. The culmination of the situation arose in the sensitive period when the new HDZ Government had taken over power and was attempting to present itself as maximally pro-European and democratic. At that time, any conflict with Holland or other OSCE members would have only had negative consequences for Croatia, especially since Croatia was expecting the positive opinion or Avis of the European Commission on Croatia’s request for EU membership. It is here worthwhile noting that the Blečić v. Croatia case is explicitly noted on page 29 of the Avis.

Nor could the Croatian Government allow itself to enter into a conflict with Peter Semneby and the OSCE Mission in Zagreb, and as such, avoided such a conflict. One must not forget that Semneby is responsible for giving his assessment of the Croatian justice system and legislative system, and sends periodical reports on such to the OSCE Standing Council. Proof as to how important his reports are was seen in the speech by Theodor Meron, president of the Hague Tribunal, before the UN Security Council, in which he recently referred to the OSCE report on the judicial system in Croatia, in the context of letting Croatia try individual cases. From that perspective, one can assess whether there is a possible conflict of interest of the OSCE Mission in Croatia which on the one hand participates in a case before an international court against Croatia and arguments its standpoint with the “bad laws and verdicts by Croatian courts which failed to result in the return of refugee members of national minorities,” and on the other hand which has real power to inflict great damage on the Croatian system.

The Croatian Government decided instead to legally contest the arguments of the third, allegedly neutral, side and to keep the situation exclusively within the framework of the cases Kristina Blečić v. Croatia before the European Court of Human Rights. Which meant to exclude the illustration of the broad political situation in Croatia outlined in the reports forwarded to Strasbourg by the OSCE Missions in BiH and Croatia. The report by the Zagreb OSCE Mission also gives the assessments on the situation in Croatia which has absolutely no relevance in the Blečić cases, such that on page 3 of the report, the OSCE refers to tenancy rights and cites the provisions of the Tenancy Relations Act from 1992, by which “participating in hostile activities is the basis for the loss of tenancy rights, which resulted in the loss of tenancy rights for the spouses and children of those persons who were for those reasons absent from the flats and in whose name the tenancy rights were listed”. That is only one of the OSCE citations which have nothing to do with the concrete case, but instead only depict the standpoint of the organization. One entire chapter of the report (Chapter 4) relates to the Croatian Podunavlje region, which the Blečić case relates exclusively to the City of Zadar.

On 29 July 2004, the Court ruled in favour of Croatia, and in the explanation of its verdict, rejected the arguments of the OSCE, among them are such as “the entire population of the region caught up in the conflict suffered similar problems, such as shelling, a lack of water and electricity, members of the minority were further exposed to abuse, threats and in many cases, the forceful eviction from their homes.” This verdict has in fact formed a precedent for future similar cases to come before the European Court for Human Rights. There are 860 cases for the return of tenancy rights ongoing before Croatian courts, and some of those could find their way to Strasbourg.

When asked by Nacional on whose initiative the OSCE became included in the proceedings, Peter Semneby responded in writing. “The OSCE acted as amicus curiae, which came following the assessment of the Netherlands, as then presiding state over the OSCE, that reports by the OSCE Mission in Croatia and the Mission in Bosnia Herzegovina could be useful in that case. The request for intervention as a third party was in accordance with the mandate of both organizations, which covers the wide area of human rights. In the submitted reports, the OSCE Mission in Croatia expressed its concerns that there were elements of discrimination in the termination of tenancy rights in Croatia, which was unequally applied to those persons with tenancy rights of Serbian nationality. The ruling by the European Court for Human Rights did not explicitly relate to that issue.”