The outgoing children’s ombudswoman has a worrying message.
Ombudswoman for Children Ivana Milas Klarić is getting ready to leave her post. She did not apply for another term after her current term was cut short by the government’s decision to adopt a new law, which she says was passed just in order to destroy the independency of her office, reports N1 on September 30, 2017.
Your recent message to children, “learn foreign languages and flee the country as fast as you can”, sent at a session of the Parliamentary Committee on Family, Youth and Sports, has caused strong reactions.
Some people are laughing, but other tell me that in bookstores the best-selling books are foreign language dictionaries. I have been the ombudswoman for four years, and I have issued a myriad of recommendations to change legislation. But, no one cares about it and no one reads our reports. And then, you assess the social situation in an obviously ironic way, and suddenly everybody is upset. Unfortunately, that is our reality. I am not trying to make anyone leave, and I am not under the illusion that my advice should be understood literally. Earlier, just men were leaving the country, but now whole families are going abroad. Teachers in Slavonia have no one to teach. You open the newspapers, and the news are awful. There are statements in parliament that judges should be murdered, there are paedophilia cases that nobody cares about, the justice minister says we do not have money for that. If someone is fine with that, I think that is sad.
What has been done positively since you became the Ombudsperson for Children?
A step forward in the legislative sense was the Family Law of 2015, which is now being dismantled. For the past couple of years, some of previous achievements and protections in the legislative sense and the practical sense have collapsed. We have a reverse trend in the protection of human rights and social security. After the Homeland War, we had some optimism, but for the last couple of years, we have seen the degradation of everything.
How did you cooperate with the authorities?
We have a decent co-operation with operational staff in the ministries, many of whom are working honestly and know what they are doing. But, the top of the government does not listen, and they are the ones who make decisions. I do not envy the person who will follow me. I want them to succeed, but I think that the new law will prevent this. I have personally warned the Prime Minister about all the wrong solutions which are in complete disagreement with all European standards. He was personally informed, so it is ridiculous that now he says he did not know anything about the proposal for the new Family Law. He knew everything about the Law on the Ombudsperson for Children, and his reaction was – nothing.
The draft of the new Family Law has caused a wave of criticism and has been withdrawn. Should the government change the working group which is writing the law?
I do not think it is necessary to replace the working group, or the law itself because it has been quite effective. For the government, it would be best not to do anything about it. Doing nothing is the best because the existing law works fine.
Minister Nada Murganić said she did not intend to undermine anyone’s feelings with the definition of family in the draft law, but just to make it clearer. Should she resign?
It is not the role of the Ombudsperson to comment on personnel, that is the job of HDZ and their partners, and I will not comment on it. But I can say this: she does not have enough professional competence to evaluate the quality of work of the working group members, which have actually done a lousy job.
Will the next ombudsperson better cooperate with the authorities?
This law does not provide any foundation for independent work. For example, the Committee on the Family will approve the annual programme of the ombudsperson, and the Committee is composed of politicians – this is not an independent position. The government is burdened with the economic situation, Agrokor, the corruption scandals; there is no money for children. This is a disaster because the government must be responsible for the state of human rights and the protection of the weakest, namely children and people with disabilities. But, children are not voters.
You have not submitted your application to be re-elected?
You should never go to a party which you have not been invited to, but that does not mean I am not going to monitor the situation. I did not lose my optimism because someone should still think with their own head and criticise because, if you have a situation in which nobody is criticising anything, then you cannot make progress.
Translated from N1.
