The leader of the NHS trade union federation, Kresimir Sever, has said that trade unions believe that holding a referendum on the government-sponsored amendments to labour legislation is the only solution following the decision by the parliamentary Committee on the Constitution, Standing Orders and the Political System that the Constitutional Court should decide whether or not the referendum is still necessary after the government withdrew its amendments.
On Tuesday morning the parliamentary committee endorsed such a proposal put forward by the ruling coalition.
We expect the Constitutional Court to respond as quickly as it did when deciding on the so-called crisis tax and on shops' working hours on Sundays, Sever said on Tuesday, reiterating that "the referendum is the only right path."
He said that before launching their campaign to collect the required number of signatures to support their demand for the referendum, trade unions had consulted with experts on whether the referendum question was in line with the Constitution, and the answer was affirmative.
In addition, trade unions managed to collect more than the minimum required signatures.
All this (with the referral of the matter to the Constitutional Court) seems to be a loss of time that will be of no use to the ruling structure, Sever said in the town of Velika Gorica.
Another trade union leader, Ozren Matijasevic, said in Zagreb later in the day that the parliamentary committee's decision was untenable as it undermined the system of tripartite separation of powers.
"After the necessary signatures were collected in accordance with the law, the parliament must decide on the referendum. Assessing whether it is in accordance with the Constitution is unnecessary, as is the shifting of responsibility from the law-making to the judicial institutions," Matijasevic said.
