Human Rights House Zagreb and Zagreb Pride have submitted a joint communication to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, raising concerns that Croatia has yet to ensure the effective execution of the European Court of Human Rights judgment in Sabali\u0107 v. Croatia. The communication aims to highlight persistent shortcomings in the identification, investigation and prosecution of hate crimes, and the need to assess the effectiveness of state measures based on their actual outcomes, rather than merely on the number of laws, protocols and training activities introduced.<\/p>\n
In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights found that Croatia had failed to provide an adequate criminal-law response to a homophobic attack against the applicant in 2010. Despite clear indications of homophobic motivation, the attack was dealt with as a minor offence against public peace and order rather than through an appropriate criminal-law response addressing the hate motive.<\/p>\n
Five years after the judgment, the key shortcomings identified by the Court remain unresolved.<\/p>\n
In our communication, we particularly highlight the failure of individual measures taken to execute the judgment. A request to reopen the criminal proceedings, submitted in 2021, was rejected in September 2025 because criminal prosecution had become time-barred, following more than four years of proceedings before the domestic courts. As a result, the applicant was denied the possibility of a renewed judicial examination of the homophobic motivation behind the attack.<\/p>\n
At the same time, although Croatia has strengthened its legislative framework, adopted a Protocol on Procedure in Cases of Hate Crime and conducted numerous training activities, evidence from practice indicates that institutions continue to identify and investigate bias-motivated violence inconsistently. Particularly concerning are shortcomings in the recording and monitoring of criminal justice outcomes, as well as persistently low reporting rates. According to research by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, only 16% of LGBTIQ respondents in Croatia who had experienced a physical or sexual attack reported it to the police (EU LGBTIQ Survey III).<\/p>\n
The communication was submitted under Rule 9.2, which enables civil society organisations to provide information to the Committee of Ministers as part of its supervision of the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. Through this process, the Committee monitors whether states have taken appropriate measures to address the human rights violations identified by the Court and prevent similar violations from occurring in the future.<\/p>\n
We call on the Croatian authorities to ensure consistent identification and investigation of bias motivation, effective protection for victims, improved monitoring of criminal justice outcomes, and public policies that deliver measurable improvements in institutional practice. We consider that supervision of the execution of the Sabali\u0107 judgment should not be closed until there is sufficient evidence that the measures adopted are effectively preventing similar violations.<\/p>\n