During a few-day study stay in Zagreb members of the Committee for Education, Science, Culture, Human Rights and Petitions of the Senate’s Upper House of the Czech Republic Parliament, accompanied by the Czech Ambassador in the Republic of Croatia Vladimir Zavázal, visited the Office of the Ombudswoman on 17th September 2018, in order to learn more about the protection of national minorities in the Republic of Croatia, with special focus on the Check minority.

Deputy Ombudswoman Tena Šimonović Einwalter presented the mandates and the institution’s work regarding the minority issues, implementation of the Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities and protection against discrimination.

The Czech national minority has been perceived to be very good organised and with long tradition. The delegation was informed that the Czech minority is one among the few whose participation in the public service employment reaches almost the same portion of the Czechs in total population in RC which amounts to 0.22%. Hence, the municipality of Končanica is the only local self-government unit where more than one third of local population belong to the Czech ethnicity (47, 03%) and, therefore, the Czech language is equally introduced in the public domains.