Tahanks for support:
Velibor Ponos vodic.24cro.com
We, the holders of "dwelling rights" (stanarsko pravo), are the victims of bad and unjust legislation during the past 60 years! We are severely damaged and discriminated against! Most of the seized apartments have not been returned, but given to dwelling-right holders, while, on the contrary, the same dwelling rights are seized from us! All that we demand is respecting the international Agreement on Succession Issues and Resolution 1096 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. We are not privileged persons of the previous system! We demand that new injustices be not made while correcting the old ones! We demand that our dwelling rights, that have been acquired honestly and legally, be respected. (See below: How dwelling rights were acquired). We demand our honestly-acquired apartments, and a just compensation for nominal owners, who are forever deprived of the main owner's rights, by the laws, since 1945! We condemn the violations of our human rights to home, property and ownership. We refuse to be unjustly and unconstitutionally compelled to move into worse and cheaper substitute apartments!
Here is a copy of our letter to Croatian citizens:
THIS
CONCERNS YOU,
BECAUSE
SOMETHING SIMILAR CAN HAPPEN TO YOU TOO!
We are deprived of almost-all our property - our dwelling right (stanarsko pravo)!
Thousands of families are severely damaged by the laws and courts' decisions that are contrary to the Croatian Constitution and international conventions!
The newspapers do not publish our texts!
We sent the following text to newspapers on July 7th, 2004, and later, but it has not been published(!):
Our government did not succeed (or did not want?) to inform the public, fully and in detail (or even briefly), through the most-widely-read newspapers, about the ratification of the Agreement on Succession Issues or to make us acquainted with the enormous importance of the Anex G to this Agreement (Official paper Narodne novine - Medunarodni ugovori, No. 2, March 17th, 2004). We should be much surprised at this (supposing that the things are better in other European countries), and we could ask ourselves whether our leading people are indeed serious and responsible enough! This reminds us of the similar cover-up of the Resolution 1096 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in 1996!
The above-mentioned Annex G (Article 2, Para 2) obligates the Republic of Croatia to respect all contracts concluded by citizens or other legal persons of the SFRY up to December 31st, 1990, including those concluded by public enterprises. So, to put it even more clearly: from now on, all the (old) contracts, concluded by citizens up to the end of 1990, must be respected; and this means that the existing laws must be made consistent with that obligation. Moreover, this is supplemented (and not derogated, as some people would like to falsely interpret!) by the Article 6 of the Annex G, which requires that these legal stipulations be applied without any discrimination. ***
It was clear enough (even before the Agreement on Succession Issues) that Article 30 of the Law on Renting Apartments (1996) had unjustifiably cancelled the contracts by which the dwelling rights in the so-called "private" occupied apartments had been acquired. This has now become quite unquestionable, because the same is stated in the international agreement, which, by its legal power, is above the laws (according to Article 140 of the Croatian Constitution, N. N. 41/2001). So, the State must respect the contracted obligation by making the Law on Renting Apartments consistent with the international agreement; and this means that the stipulation of Article 30 of that Law must be abolished. In this way, all the rights, that have been unjustly, wrongly and unconstitutionally seized from the dwelling-right holders, should be returned to them; and this can also be accomplished by granting them (simultaneously with restoring their dwelling rights) the right to cheaply buy their (occupied) apartments in the same way and approximately at the same price as the public and nationalized apartments have been bought, as well as some private apartments (by Article 48 of the Law on Renting Apartments). The nominal owners should get compensations from the State, in accordance with the above-mentioned Resolution 1096.
------------
(The above letter has been sent by members of dwelling-right-holders' associations and other dwelling-righ holders)
***
NOTE: In the Article 6 of the Annex G it is written, that
the domestic legislation concerning dwelling rights shall
be applied without discrimination. This does not
mean that the bad stipulations of the Law on Renting Apartments should
remain unchanged, but just on the contrary, this means that it will be
obligatory to apply, without discrimination, such laws concerning dwelling
rights, as will be passed and effective. So, no exception from Article
2 of the Annex G has been made, and the Article 30 of the Law on
Renting Apartments (from 1996) must be annulled. According to Article
6 of Annex G, the domestic legislation CAN, and according to Article 2
it also MUST respect our contracts, by which we acquired our dwelling
rights before 1990.
How dwelling rights were acquired:
After 1945 all rented apartments were seized from original owners, and
the tenants legally acquired permanent dwelling rights. The former owners
have kept apartments in which they lived. (The problem of those, who were
expelled from their apartments, should be solved separately). So, the
housing problem of most owners, as well as dwelling-right holders, was
permanently solved by the then-effective laws. That must also be respected
today according to the ratified Agreement on Succession Issues (Annex
G). As the children grew up, some of the new families acquired new dwelling
rights in new or empty apartments. The holders of the existing dwelling
rights in "private occupied" apartments could not acquire dwelling
rights in other apartments. Also, some of their children, as well as some
of the original-owners' children, have not acquired new dwelling rights,
although everybody had contributed to housing funds. The State should
either return the paid-in amounts of money, or take them into account
when apartments are bought. According to Resolution 1096, our dwelling
rights should not be violated and a just material compensation should
be given to original owners. The Croatian Constitution (1990.)
does not require restitution of previously-seized property, but the Constitution
is violated by seizing our property
and ownership (i.e. our dwelling rights) in 1996! Legally and de
facto, all the original owners of the seized apartments had permanently
lost their ownership (i.e. almost-all owner's rights) regardless of
the fact that some of them remained registered in the cadastral books.
Our dwelling rights are our legally-acquired property and ownership.
If you need further
explanations about dwelling rights, property, ownership, etc., please
send an e-mail to branko.soric@zg.htnet.hr
However, regardless of such questions, it follows directly from
the above-mentioned Annex G that our dwelling rights MUST BE RESPECTED,
because they are our 90-percent OWNERSHIP ON THE APARTMENTS IN WHICH WE
LIVE!
You can find more on http://soric-b.tripod.com/stan
CITIZENS, HELP US, BECAUSE BY DEFENDING OUR RIGHTS YOU ALSO DEFEND YOURS!
September, 2004.
Holders
of dwelling rights and
dr. med.
Branko Soric, Zagreb
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