Paper Titles & Abstracts

Croatia faithfully implemented EU antidiscrimination acquis during the accession negotiation process. This legislative effort made Croatia an exemplary case for the whole region. However, the enforcement of the implemented instruments has been far from a success story so far. In last couple of years Croatian courts faced a number of antidiscrimination claims, most of which were related to sexual orientation discrimination. As the paper shows, the results of these proceedings are troubling. The paper focuses on four major antidiscrimination decisions related to sexual orientation. The decisions are interesting for a list of reasons. The proceedings concerned two cases with almost identical facts. Moreover, the facts strongly resembled those that resulted in the CJEU's Feryn decision. Yet, two of the most prominent Croatian courts, one of which was the Supreme Court, delivered four profoundly dissimilar decisions on all three key claims - direct discrimination, sexual harassment and burden of proof distribution. The analysis of these decisions shows that Croatian courts do not comprehend the basic features of antidiscrimination guarantees. They are far from equipped to handle complexity implicit in legal arguments and strategies related to antidiscrimination claims. Special attention will be accorded to the distribution of the burden of proof guarantee. The paper will show that Croatian courts, similar to their colleagues in other Central-Easter European post-socialist legal systems, do not understand or simply refuse to take this guarantee seriously. Consequently, antidiscrimination procedures tend to get unnecessarily long and burdensome. The final result is ineffective judicial protection for discrimination victims.