Croatian Court Promises to Review Abortion Law

Jasna Omejec, president of Croatia's constitutional court, on Wednesday announced the start of a constitutional review of the law on medical measures, which allows abortion until the 10th week of pregnancy.

The mainly Catholic country inherited the law of 1978 from communist Yugoslavia.

According to the World Health Organization, there were 85 abortions for every 1,000 births in Croatia in 2012, compared to an EU average of 216.

An appeal against the law was filed back in 1991, after Croatia broke away from Yugoslavia, by Ruzica Cavar, founder of a socially conservative Christian NGO, Croatian Movement for Life and Family.

Omejec said the judge responsible for the constitutional revision of the law had finished his work and the judges' panel would now discuss the issue.

"I can't say with certainty when the proceedings will start. In any case, I will try to address [the issue]... by  June 2016," she said.

Since new constitutional court judges have not been elected, the court, which normally numbers 13 judges, will have only six, which is below the quorum needed to pass a decision.

Cavar is a well known Catholic activist in Croatia. At a protest against the influence of the Catholic Church in Zagreb in September 2014, she was physically attacked after she started to remove the protesters' signs.

Cavar told BIRN that she "thanked God for the willingness of the constitutional court to deal with the issue.

"I almost lost all hope, after more than 20 years when nothing was happening. The only thing the court did until now was to send an inquiry to a team of medical experts in 2009," she said.

According to her, the experts had agreed that "life begins with conception", which she said worked in favour of her...