Office of the President of the Republic Responds to Statement of Ombudsperson for Gender Equality

The Ombudsperson for Gender Equality Višnja Ljubičić issued a statement related to the statement of the President of the Republic of Croatia Zoran Milanović on “the alleged sexual orientation of the Minister of the Economy and Sustainable Development Damir Habijan. And, referring to the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, she is seeking “an expert opinion from the domain of personal data protection” from the Croatian Personal Data Protection Agency”.

It took her four days to decide entirely on her own, we are assured, to write something because she evidently also studied constitutional provisions on the importance of personal data protection. What kind of “expert opinion” has the diligent ombudsperson sought from the Croatian Data Protection Agency and what should that expert opinion say? We are not sure if she herself knows what she has requested but the Agency can protect personal data only if such data exists.

So we ask the Ombudsperson are there data about a person’s sexual orientation and where? Or did she just hear from Andrej Plenković that they exist since he said publicly “imagine only if I started talking about the sexual orientation of politicians and journalists”. If such data do not exist – and we hope they don’t – then the Ombudsperson’s request to the Agency can only mean she is requesting the Agency to establish the sexual orientation of Minister Habijan in order to learn whether she is authorized to act on that request.

So after putting so much effort into interpreting constitutional values, the Office of the President of the Republic expects Ombudsperson Ljubičić to carefully read the statement of Damir Habijan who – at the time a HDZ Member of Parliament who depicted himself as a serious jurist and lawyer – on 10 March 2023 in the Croatian Parliament said that President Milanović is “a person with an evident bipolar disorder”. At the time she did not seek “an expert opinion from the domain of personal data protection” for the disclosure of potentially very serious personal data, and neither did any other big moralizers and current guardians of the privacy of persons who openly monetize their bodies and sexuality.

Although Ombudsperson Ljubičić has actually no relevance to personal data protection, on behalf of the President of the Republic we take this opportunity and her sudden concern for personal data protection to kindly request “an expert opinion from the domain of personal data protection” from the Croatian Data Protection Agency because of the mentioned statement by Habijan related to the President of the Republic. We trust that she will be consistent and that her failure to act is due to her busy schedule. Yes, she is right, sexual orientation is a private matter, and we agree with Ombudsperson Ljubičić on that. But we stress that being gay is neither an insult nor a problem, unless you are part of the hypocritical political bunch. Then along comes Ombudsperson Ljubičić.