"Human Rights Day is special for us today because this year our country is celebrating its Constitution, the most important document on the organisation of the state and human rights in the legal and political history of the Croatian people," said Parliament Speaker Luka Bebic.

"The special session has been convened as an expression of respect for our Constitution, the European Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but also as a sign of our commitment to the freedom of the individual and the protection of basic human rights in a law-based democracy," said Bebic.

The session was attended by representatives of Croatia's political, judicial, church and social authorities as well as of the diplomatic corps.

Vladimir Seks, deputy parliament speaker and one of the architects of the first Croatian Constitution, recalled the "important and decisive" time when the first Constitution was passed and when Franjo Tudjman, the first Croatian president, whom "we remember with pride and respect," had presented to deputies the starting points and principles for drawing up the Constitution.

"The Croatian Constitution wasn't conceived as a Utopian, abstract text out of space and time, but as a real and realistic Constitution which, by guaranteeing human and civil rights as well as the rule of law, and not of people and ideas, would become a document of all citizens of fundamental and lasting value," said Seks.

"The Constitution is the foundation of the statehood of the Republic of Croatia, but also part of the common European constitutional heritage which rests on the universal values of Christian civilisation. By achieving the values written into the Constitution, we are ensuring its legitimacy," Seks said, adding he wished only one thing for the Croatian Constitution - its full and true implementation.

Constitutional Court president Jasna Omejec spoke of the European Convention of Human Rights and the practice of the European Court of Human Rights.

"The Convention has indisputably achieved what no other instrument for the protection of human rights in the world has achieved to date - 47 countries are under the European Court's jurisdiction and 815 million Europeans under its protection," Omejec said, adding the marking of the Convention's 60th anniversary on Human Rights Day had great symbolic importance.