Croatia/ 5.2 Legislation on culture  

Since acquiring independence in 1990, new laws in the field of culture were passed and many have gone through several stages of revision and amendment.

Cultural institutions are registered legal and physical entities that may be private or public. The most important and the largest cultural institutions have been set up as public institutions.

There is no unified law on culture. Specific laws and regulations that completely or predominantly relate to culture are:

• Law on Managing Cultural Institutions (NN 96/01);
• Law on Culture Councils (NN 53/01, NN 48/04, NN 44/09);
• Law on Financing Public Needs in Culture (NN 47/90, NN 27/93, NN 38/09);
• Law on the Renewal of Dubrovnik's Endangered Architectural Heritage (NN 21/86, 33/89, 26/93 and 128/99);
• Law on the Rights of Freelance Artists and Encouraging Cultural Creativity (NN 43/96 and 44/96);
• Law on Copyrightand Related Rights (NN 167/03), Law on Amendments to the Law on Copyrightand Related Rights(NN 79/07, NN 80/11);
• Museums Law (NN 142/98, NN 65/09); Law on Museums of Ivan Meštrović (NN 76/07); Law on Jasenovac Memorial Site (NN 15/90, NN 28/90);
• Law on Archive Material and Archives (NN105/97, NN 64/00, NN 65/09); Law on Croatian Memorial-Documentation Centre of Homeland War (NN 178/04);
• Law on Theatres (NN 71/06);
• Law on Audiovisual Activities (NN 76/07, NN 90/11);
• Law on the Protection and Preservation of Cultural Assets (NN 69/99, NN 151/03, NN157/03, NN 87/09, NN 88/10, NN 61/11 , NN 25/12);
• Law on Library Activity and Libraries (NN 105/97, NN 5/98, NN 104/00, NN 69/09);
• Law on Rights on Access to Information (NN 172/03, NN 144/10, 37/11, 77/11);
• Law on Electronic Communications (NN 73/08);
• Law on Croatian Radio-Television (NN 137/10, NN 76/12);
• Law on Croatian News Agency (NN 96/01);
• Law on Media (NN 59/04, NN 84/11);
• Law on Electronic Media (NN 153/09, NN 84/11);
• Law on the Preservation of Nature (NN 162/03, NN 139/08, NN 57/11);
• Law on Foundation "Kultura nova"(NN 90/11);and
• Decision on the National Classification of Activities (NKD, 2007).

In the past two years, the main legislative changes happened in the fields of:

• media (see chapter 4.2.6 and chapter 5.3.7); and
• audiovisual activities (see chapter 5.3.6).

Your Comments on this Chapter?