The Issue of Police Stops in Croatia

Police power to check one’s identity or to conduct a limited search of the person, assets, or vehicle is based on a justified suspicion or reasonable explanation. In the past three decades, there have been three legal changes in Croatia regarding police stops. The first was the key change in police legislation that took place with the entry into force of the new Law on Police in 2001. This change was caused by a general change in the police system as a result of the general democratisation of Croatian society. More specifically, 10 legal bases for identity verification were introduced in 2001, listed exhaustively in the Law on Police in Article 25. The second one occurred in 2014 and related to the change of the provision on identity verification at the request of a private prosecutor who requests the police to verify the identity of a person. If a police officer suspects that the data could be misused, a private prosecutor can make a written request to the police. The third also referred to the slightly amended provision on the method of identity verification at the request of a private prosecutor in 2019. More specifically, the rule of identity verification was introduced without the direct arrival of police officers to the person who is being privately sued, but the verification is possible using police records. The average frequency of identity checks in Croatia in the period from 2007 to 2018 was 76 per 1000 per annum inhabitants, which did not lead to this police power becoming a public problem. In the last few years, there has been a decrease in the number of citizens’ identity checks. The vast majority of persons checked by the police were men, over 90% of them, and more than one-third of them were registered in one of the police records. Other social actors who monitor the work of the police (scientists, the professional public, media, NGOs, minority organisations, political parties, and the ombudsman) did not recognise the use of police powers for identity verification as a public problem. The ombudsman cites some sporadic cases in his reports. Education as a means of preventing prejudice and discrimination is an integral part of educational curricula at the level of basic and higher police education.