The High Administrative Court has overturned the decision of the Josipdol Council on the establishment of local boards

The High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia has annulled the Decision on the acceptance of the initiative and proposal for the establishment of local boards in the area of the Municipality of Josipdol, which was adopted by the Municipal Council of the Municipality of Josipdol at its session on October 3, 2025. The judgment, case number Usoz-251/2025-6 dated October 26, 2026, was published in the Official Gazette (Narodne novine) no. 129/2026 of November 9, 2026, under act 1531, and the annulled general act ceases to be valid on the day of the publication of the judgment in the official gazette.

The request for the assessment of legality was submitted by the Ministry of Justice, Administration and Digital Transformation of the Republic of Croatia, OIB 72910430276, Ulica grada Vukovara 49, Zagreb. The case was decided by a council presided over by Blanša Turić, with judges dr. sc. Sanja Otočan, Senka Orlić-Zaninović, Snježana Horvat-Paliska, and Kristina Senjak Krunić, and the court reporter, senior judicial advisor – specialist Ivana Mamić Vuković. The Municipal Council, as the adopter of the act, did not comment on the request – the comment was submitted by the municipal mayor.

Invalid legal basis, not the content of the decision

The court ruled that the contested Decision was adopted by referring to Article 77 of the Statute of the Municipality of Josipdol (“Glasnik Karlovačke županije” 12/21 and 40/21), which exclusively regulates the procedure and method of amending the Statute and the circle of authorized proposers, while it does not prescribe the establishment of local boards at all. Upon review of the Statute, it was determined that none of its provisions regulated local self-government, nor the obligation to determine the areas of local boards by a special decision of the council.

A key circumstance is that the Municipal Council, at the same session, also adopted a Statutory Decision on amendments and supplements to the Statute, by which a new Chapter IX – Local Self-Government is added after Chapter VIII, and the possibility of establishing local boards is only introduced in Articles 58 to 73. The court concludes that the council could not have adopted the contested Decision in a situation where the valid Statute does not contain provisions on the establishment of local boards, because according to Article 57, paragraph 1 of the Law on Local and Regional Self-Government, a local board, as a form of direct citizen participation, is established by the statute of the local self-government unit.

What the contested decision provided for

The annulled Decision, published in the “Official Gazette of the Municipality of Josipdol” 10/25, prescribed:

• acceptance of the initiative for the establishment of local boards in the area of the Municipality of Josipdol,
• proceeding with amendments and supplements to the Statute to provide a legal basis for their establishment and operation,
• the establishment of local boards, with settlement areas defined in points 1 to 7,
• the scope and powers of the local board council,
• financing the work of local boards from the Budget of the Municipality of Josipdol,
• assigning the municipal mayor and competent administrative bodies to prepare the necessary general acts,
• entry into force on the eighth day after publication in the official gazette of the municipality.

Suspension of application did not save the decision

The Municipal Mayor issued a Decision on the suspension of the application of the contested Decision on October 10, 2025, class 024-07/25-01/7, registry number 2133-13-1-25-3, published in the “Official Gazette of the Municipality of Josipdol” 11/25. In the statement, she noted that the contested Decision was not repealed and that she had detailed the reasons for the suspension, but the Court deemed the request justified and annulled the act.

Along with the invalid legal basis, the petitioner also emphasized that the public consultation from Article 11 of the Act on the Right to Access Information was not conducted, that the proposal was not submitted to the mayor for an opinion, that the reasons for urgency were not stated, and that the act lacked a classification mark and a registry number. The Court did not evaluate these allegations because it had already established the illegality based on the invalid legal basis.

Precedent for the organization of local self-government

The judgment was rendered based on Article 162, paragraph 3 of the Administrative Disputes Act (“Narodne novine” 36/24 and 39/26), and the annulled act ceases to be valid on the day the judgment is published in “Narodne novine” – therefore, November 9, 2026. This confirmed the position that a decision of a representative body made exclusively on the basis of a statutory provision regarding the procedure for amending the Statute lacks a valid legal basis.

For local self-government units organizing local self-government, the message is direct: local boards can only be established if they are previously grounded in the statute, and not by a decision that precedes the statutory amendment. In Josipdol, the establishment of local boards now depends on the implementation of the new Chapter IX of the Statute; according to the statements in the request, consultation on the new proposal for the Statute began on November 12, 2025.

High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia, judgment case number Usoz-251/2025-6, Zagreb, October 26, 2026, council president Blanša Turić, v. r.; published in Narodne novine no. 129/2026 of November 9, 2026, act 1531.