Historical Events in Symbols and the Freedom of Expression: The Contemporary Constitutional Debate in Croatia

Abstract

In the last few years, the Croatian Constitutional Court delivered several important decisions that significantly shaped interpretative approaches to constitutional guarantee on the freedom of expression in the specific context of the public use of some symbols with contested meanings. Such developments undoubtedly deserve attention, especially in terms of particular tools that the Court used in defining limits to free speech. The primary focus of this article is directed to the issue of whether the use of contested symbols in public may be covered by constitutional free expression guarantees, and be therefore treated as the case of balancing process between them and some opposed interests, or it should be subjected to stricter prohibitions, including their complete ban. For those purposes, I am first presenting the relevant case-law of the Croatian Constitutional Court and then the cases already decided in a similar fashion by the European Court for Human Rights. In the final part I am presenting some personal views on how a further structured approach to constitutional interpretation in cases involving the use of contested symbols with historical meanings could possibly be construed in the Croatian context.