Croatia / County Court in Slavonski Brod / Kž-220/14-4

Country

Croatia

Title

Croatia / County Court in Slavonski Brod / Kž-220/14-4

View full Case

Year

2015

Decision/ruling/judgment date

Friday, March 20, 2015

Incident(s) concerned/related

Violence

Related Bias motivation

Race/Ethnicity

Groups affected

Migrants

Court/Body type

National Court

Court/Body

County Court in Slavonski Brod (Županijski sud u Slavonskom Brodu)

Key facts of the case

The High Court convicted two offenders of inflicting grave physical injury with the aggravated circumstance of hate crime. The offenders physically attacked the victim. The court held that the offence was motivated on the basis of race because the offenders directed “discriminatory words” towards the victim. The content of “the discriminatory words” was not disclosed in its ruling.

Main reasoning/argumentation

The first accused filed a complaint stating that the first-instance court incorrectly assessed that the offence was racially motivated explaining that he stated “discriminatory words” only once. Nevertheless, the high court stated that the fact that the “discriminatory words” were stated only once is irrelevant. The content of “discriminatory words” is not mentioned in the high court judgement.

Is the case related to the application of the Framework Decision on Racism and Xenophobia, the Racial Equality Directive?

Key issues (concepts, interpretations) clarified by the case

In this judgement it is significant that the high court, following the standard set by the first-instance court, held that to qualify an offence as a hate crime it is sufficient to state “discriminatory words” only once. However it is not clear why the hate crime element was deemed as an aggravating circumstance rather than characterising the offence as an aggravated form of physical injury due to hatred for which higher punishment is provided.

Results (sanctions, outcome) and key consequences or implications of the case

Eight months of imprisonment substituted with 480 working hours of work for common welfare.

Key quotation in original language and its unofficial translation into English with reference details

“Nije povjerovao obrani (...) da spram oštećenika nije postupao iz mržnje zbog rasne pripadnosti (...) jer je (...) inkriminirane riječi uputio samo jednom”

“It is not to be accepted that the accused’ acts were not motivated by racial hatred only because (...) he directed the discriminatory words only once.”

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