It has been over two years since the COVID-19 global pandemic began and, despite Australia’s strong initial government response, the country is currently experiencing its worse outbreak since 2020. This presentation seeks to outline Australia’s pandemic approach in context; discussing a range of impacts on the population including increased social and psychological strain, the impact on healthcare (in particular mental health care) as well as a range of resulting innovations used to manage these changes. Australia’s experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has been unique due to several factors including: the country’s ability to isolate, the implementation of government mandates with coinciding natural disasters, the delayed spread of COVID-19 in the population, as well as innovations in the delivery of mental health care and the provision of government welfare packages. Australia’s initial pandemic response of near total isolationism, snap-lockdowns and vaccine mandates allowed the country to bypass the worst of the first and second wave impacts of the pandemic. However, the restrictive measures implemented by the Federal and State Governments, in conjunction with the relative peace felt by a proportion of the Australian population, resulted in a disconnect between the perceived psychosocial costs for individuals and the perceived benefit to society collectively. The Australian Government took a hard-line approach to contain the virus early by closing national borders externally and state boarders internally, despite statistically low infection rates. The government response included further restrictions to the internal movement of the population by enforcing snap-lockdown’s to geographic areas and mandatory home quarantine. By restricting movement of the population early, the government was able to use the delayed spread of COVID-19 in Australia to benefit from lessons-learned globally and to manage the vaccine roll-out in a controlled manner. However, these restrictions put many lives in a state of social inertia and economic uncertainty. Restrictions resulted in the loss of employment stability, prolonged periods of work and study from home, an inability to visit family and friends (including the elderly in nursing homes), the postponement or cancellation of marriage plans, limitations on funeral attendance, and the inability of people with family members overseas to visit their loved ones for important occasions. These restrictive practices in Australia, while instrumental in avoiding countless deaths, has led to an increase in depression and anxiety, substance misuse, domestic violence, government mistrust stemming from online misinformation and disaster-fatigue all resulting in the current trend of pandemic apathy.

Since that strong start, like much of the rest of the world, Australia has grown weary of the initial hard-line government response and the subsequent relaxed state imposed COVID-19 management measures. These negative impacts continue to shape the way our country is managing the ‘new-norm’ in the current post-pandemic landscape.

According to a study by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine from the US, more than one-third of adults aged 45 and older worldwide feel lonely, and nearly one-quarter of adults aged 65 and older are socially isolated. Several international studies, including those published by the World Health Organization, show that social isolation and loneliness have serious effects on people's physical and mental health, quality of life, and life expectancy. The impact of social isolation and loneliness on mortality is comparable to that of other known risk factors such as smoking, obesity and physical inactivity. However, isolation is not only negative, but can also be beneficial to people and communities, becoming a source of inspiration and innovation, especially in an era of hyper-connectedness through information and communication technologies, where being 'unplugged' and 'disconnected' can be a desired state. In the new situation, people have started to search for a meaningful life in isolated spaces more than in the past to identify new values and find better prospects for themselves and have also tried to stay away from screens and become isolated digitally. This paper addresses the ambiguiti es of isolation during and after the pandemic. It attempts to redefine the problem of isolation in terms of time and space by focusing on the personal experiences, values, and identities of people who experienced isolation. Based on ethnographic research carried out during the COVID-19 crisis, it attempts to portray what it means to be isolated in a (post)pandemic period, describe what it meant to be isolated in the past, and imagine what kinds of isolation we can expect in the future.

There is abundant research that the COVID-19 pandemic has had more negative effects on ethnic and national minorities than on the majority population. With the beginning of the lockdown in early 2020 the information about the new disease was given mostly in the official language(s) of states, instructions on sanitary measures the same, health care given to those who fell ill and ended up in hospitals was provided mostly exclusively in the official language. Furthermore, facilitation of access to education was equally ensured mostly in the official language while the pupils studying in minority languages were left behind. Some of these measures, or rather, the lack of appropriate measures with respect to minority languages speakers, has had sometimes difficult consequences for the members of such minorities. Although some of these inequalities were justified by the sudden onset of the pandemic and the need to deal with such an unforeseen public health situation it is still not acceptable to treat members of ethnic or national and linguistic minorities as the second-grade citizens. This paper will attempt to describe the alternatives provided by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, the only treaty dedicated entirely to the protection and promotion of regional or minority languages.

The research project (Re)building society: A longitudinal study of Post-Corona Social Recovery in the Croatian General Population (ReSPoC) has explored mental health and social outcomes in dealing with consequences of the coronavirus pandemic in Croatia over the course of 18 months. The study was conducted at four time points on a national probabilistic sample of participants aged 18-74 years. An online survey using CAWI method was conducted with a total of 743 respondents participated in all four time points. The first wave of data was collected in August and September 2020 and the last, fourth wave, in March 2022. The waves of data collection followed the cycles of the pandemic worsening and improvements. Three groups of indicators were examined: 1. key experiences related to the pandemic; 2. mental health indicators, and 3. social outcomes related to how the participants have experienced some aspects of state and society during the pandemic. We consider them as indicators of soci(et)al health. The results show that decline in mental health indicators was not sizeable and after an initial and relatively small negative impact on mental health, most of the citizens have recovered successfully, showing noticeable resilience. The similar pattern has been observed for quite a few social health outcomes (e. g. generalized trust and general solidarity) indicating a firm and relatively stable social network of interpersonal and social ties among citizens. Nevertheless, some of key indicators of societal health have continued to decline over the course of the pandemic (e. g. a decline in institutional trust and an increase in political helplessness and anomie) indicating foreseeable challenges in post-corona recovery of Croatian society. Possible solutions and directions for future research will be discussed.

Within the InfoCoV project funded by the Croatian Science Foundation, we developed a framework for analysis COVID-19 related texts published on social media. For the analysis of large amounts of texts, we used methods and techniques from the fields of data science and artificial intelligence, such as machine learning, deep learning and graph neural networks. We performed natural language processing (NLP) tasks: keyword extraction, named entity recognition, topic modelling and sentiment analysis. Next, we analysed how main keywords, topics, entities and sentiment changed during the first three waves of the pandemic. In addition, we used methods from the domain of social network analysis (SNA) to identify hubs, communities and the structure of Twitter represented as the multilayer network. Furthermore, we selected a set of multilayer network measures that can be used as predictors of retweeting. We trained a Multi-Cro-CoV-BERT model for the prediction of retweeting using a combination of text and multilayer network features. InfoCoV project resulted in a set of language resources and a platform that can be extended and further used in similar tasks of online media information monitoring. In our future work we plan to extend the proposed framework with the tasks such as information spreading prediction, automatic detection of fake news, hate speech recognition. Information monitoring of social and online media provides an insight into online communication which may be of great importance during (global) crises. In that context, automatic analysis of a large number of texts published on social media based on AI is the first step toward a better understanding of online communication. It should be followed by interdisciplinary research including different fields of social sciences (sociology, psychology, economy, communicology, etc.).

The notion of resilience in the last fifteen years has become interesting within several academic disciplines. From biology and engineering to sustainability studies and natural disaster research and development studies. The discussion that turned the notion of resilience and its more intensive use at its core raised the question of whether it is possible to describe societies with the notion of resilience? What would be the resilience of society and how are societies resilient in general? Social scientists have highlighted the need to conceptualize social resilience as a concept that will help us understand the reactions and developments of societies to the challenges of this century. The existing dangers, but also the dangers that lie ahead, point us to the socio-ecological collapse we can expect. That is why it is important to research and understand the extent to which societies can be (un)resilient to various types of collapse (natural disasters, economic crises). In this presentation, the emphasis will be on understanding how resilient society can be and what we should scientifically cover in our research given the socio-ecological collapse that has begun.

The right to healthcare is a basic human right protected by international treaties, such as the preamble of the World Health Organization's 1948 Constitution. It is also enshrined in European institutions' legal frameworks and implemented in member states' national legislation. Although national legislation generally provides to all citizens equal access to healthcare, the question remains whether it is truly available to those who belong to society's vulnerable groups. The focus of the research project Healthcare as a Public Space: Social Integration and Social Diversity in the Context of Access to Healthcare in Europe was to investigate how individuals belonging to national, religious, or gender and sexual orientation minorities, exercise their right to access to healthcare in certain European Union member states i.e. in Germany, Poland, Slovenia, and Croatia. This project funded by the HERA program, aimed to determine how and to what extent European standards and guidelines on diversity are incorporated into the national legislation of the involved member states, and how it is implemented in clinical practice in these countries. This presentation will discuss the findings of a study on the accessibility of healthcare in Croatia for these vulnerable groups. In addition to providing insight into the realization of the right to healthcare for members of these minorities, the project's findings can serve as a foundation for potential recommendations at the European and national levels aimed at addressing inequalities in the healthcare system, as well as in the broader social context.

There is an increasing recognition that the COVID-19 pandemic has been a generator of unprecedented global crisis that immediately affected almost all aspects of social life, and created obstacles to the full and effective realization of previously attained social security rights and services. The said conclusion stands still, and a vast majority of research confirms that the crisis has triggered an array of negative social, economic, and political outcomes that further increase social vulnerability. While communities continue to bear the burden placed on public health systems, social care and economy impairing their capacity to respond to novel coronavirus crisis, a question remains whether the rights of vulnerable individuals can be adequately protected in the time of global, unexpected disaster. The notion of individual vulnerability is forged within the human rights framework and state’s duty to protect the weakest members of community. Under a recent interpretation of the vulnerability concept from the European Court of Human Rights, the rule emerges that the greater degree of vulnerability imposes the greater obligation on states to protect these who need protection the most. However, the standards of legal protection built within the boundaries of normative systems were not created for the time of pandemic. The Croatian Science Foundation project #COVID-19#VULNERABILITY has confirmed the need for a more effective protection of the rights of the vulnerable groups, especially during the lockdown period. The model of protection demands that during the state of emergency or quasi-emergency, the support services for vulnerable have to remain operational and upgraded on three different levels, i.e. the dissemination of information level, level of already established services including the access to justice, and prevention level.

More than two years after the origin of the health crisis and the consequent declaration of national emergency, after the most acute phase of the fight against this “invisible enemy”, it is possible to try to take stock of how the Italian source system has reacted to an objectively sudden and unpredictable upheaval. If without doubt the constitutional order, despite some avoidable stress tests to which it has been subjected, has, at least formally, held up, the question that needs to be asked appears rather another one. Has the “alternative” governance, based on the unusual binomial Law Decree/Prime Ministerial Decree and greatly diverged from the Civil Protection Code, really proved to be the most appropriate and efficient solution, or, on closer inspection, has it ended up generating more problems than it has solved?

The COVID-19 found governments across the world, Slovenia not excluded, largely unprepared for what followed in the next two years. One of the features of the restrictive measures in Slovenia was that they were almost exclusively adopted in the form of government ordinances. This approach was supported by the need to provide a fast and effective response, however, it was from the outset deemed problematic from the perspective of the separation of powers and democratic oversight of the measures adopted. This paper analyses the key decisions of the Slovenian Constitutional Court, focusing on the understanding of the principle of legality, which formed the key premise of the Court’s reasoning. It also looks at the responses of the government to the Constitutional Court’s decisions, as well as legislative proposals produced by civil society to address the constitutional issues. The paper also provides an overall constitutional assessment of the pandemic response in Slovenia thus far.

In lives of constitutions, states of emergency are by all means extraordinary times. This is most obvious in specific consequences they inevitably produce: in face of serious threats, both separation of powers principle and fundamental rights and freedoms guarantees will, at least to some significant extent, have to be readjusted. My aim is to present various normative explanations as to how those emergency readjustments should be made. For that purpose, I will try to explain the main propositions of principal positions from the American emergency doctrine (executive unilateralism, civil libertarianism, process-based institutional approach). In addition, I will argue that their roots can well be traced to some historical writings and past experiences and that they may have a reach in comparative constitutional law field as well.

In this paper, we explore the underlying theory of the Croatian constitution in the response to the COVID outbreak. We argue that the operative issue imposed by the pandemic, at least in Croatian constitutionalist circles, was how facts should be related to constitutional values, structures, and norms. Although at first blush a replica of our general inability to get some bearing on a terrain of uncertainty in an unforeseen outbreak, we will explore the matter as a specific problem of constitutional theory, aiming to explore its implications for constitutional dimensions of vulnerability. To do so, we draw from the literature to describe the different ways constitutions may be imagined in relation to facts and then apply this insight to the measures enacted by the Croatian state during the COVID pandemic. The result is a treacherous terrain, where the exercise of state power and its restriction stand on thin constitutional grounds, excluding a spectrum of more substantive interpretations of the Constitution. In conclusion, we argue that this map reveals a narrowed basis for identifying and vindicating vulnerability.

This presentation will provide a brief overview of the process of ratification and implementation of the Istanbul Convention in Croatia. This process did not run smoothly. On the contrary, mobilization of different groups led to a widespread campaign against the Convention based on a number of misconception - moving focus away from what the Convention really represents and wants to achieve. After the ratification the interest in the Convention has decreased. Not even a third of the pre-ratification content currently exists in the public sphere. Consequently, at first glance it could be concluded that the Istanbul Convention had a much greater impact in Croatia before its ratification than in its aftermath. In order to question if this assumption is true, the first part of this paper will analyse the extent to which Croatian legal system has been harmonised with the letter and the spirit of the Convention, both before and after the ratification. The second part will deal with the institutional developments and policies implementing the Convention. In conclusion, the overall impact of the Istanbul Convention will be briefly assessed. A special attention will be given to the notion of vulnerability and protection of vulnerable victims of gender-based violence, in particular in context of sexual violence and COVID-19 pandemic.

Domestic violence has been an ongoing and current discussion area in the Republic of Croatia for a very long time. Scientific papers, projects, media coverage of tragic cases and statistical indicators on its growth support this claim. This violence leaves significant, sometimes the most severe, individual and social damage. Given the value of legal norms that generally seek to regulate social relations as they should be, to combat this violence effectively, among other needed mechanisms and areas of action, it is extremely important to properly shape the legal framework. This framework in Croatian legislation extends to several branches of law, but in terms of sanctions, the main addresses are criminal and misdemeanour law. In both of these branches, the norms have changed significantly over time, but the effectiveness of these changes is questionable. This lecture will therefore focus on the content and changes of norms related to domestic violence in the area of ​​these two repressive branches through the analysis of key concepts and their interpretation. It will also try to outline the normative context of domestic violence in times of crisis, such as i.e. COVID-19 pandemic. The ultimate goal is to draw a conclusion on whether the current normative definition and prohibition of domestic violence meets the required standards and how their design can be improved.

Previous research on intimate partner violence (IPV) shows different approaches to answering the question of the impact of the pandemic on IPV. The purpose of this study was two-fold. First, to examine the impact of the pandemic on the personal and family functioning of victims of IPV, the impact of lockdown on the incidence of violence, help-seeking, coping mechanisms, mental health indicators, and the relationship between the experience of violence, resilience, and mental health indicators. Second, to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on IPV shelters and their staff. Interviews with shelters' staff (N=10) were focused on 3 questions: 1) how shelters changed their work during the pandemic; 2) how staff described the occurrence of and response to vicarious trauma, and 3) what staff learned from their experience with the pandemic crisis. The client sample consisted of women (N = 52) who were clients of women's shelters in Croatia. The pandemic worsened the financial situation of clients and led to changes in the substance use by participants' partners. Since the introduction of lockdown, there has been an increase in all forms of violence, ranging from 26% (economic violence) to 46% (psychological violence). Participants were most likely to seek help from social welfare centers and the police and showed relatively high resilience and relatively favorable scores on the depression, anxiety, and stress scales. Three main themes emerged from the interviews with the staff: 1) changes in organizational working conditions during the pandemic; 2) emotional challenges, and 3) positive effects of the pandemic. As in other countries, the pandemic in Croatia brought numerous challenges but also opportunities. Shelter staff demonstrated their strengths and commitment to supporting IPV victims during the pandemic. Their experiences should be used to develop an effective response to future crises.

For victims of domestic violence, obligatory lockdowns aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19 have trapped them inside the home with their abusers 24 hours a day and isolated them from the people and resources that could help them. Due to the countrywide lockdown, the abusers are continuously present in the victims' lives and have a greater ability to terrify them and control their lives. Home has become a double-edged sword for the victims of domestic violence – the safest place from the Coronavirus and the most dangerous place because they are isolated with their abusers. This research aims to explore how COVID-19 social restrictions have affected the occurrence of violence against closely related persons in Croatia. To this end, police data will be compared and analysed on the number of reported cases of violence committed to the detriment of a closely related person during the lockdown period and immediately before and after it. Special attention will be paid to the qualification of criminal offences committed against a closely related person and to the socio-demographic characteristics of perpetrators and victims of that violence. Based on the interpretation of the data, we assess whether significant discrepancies in the cases of family violence committed during lockdown can be detected. The conclusion points to certain shortcomings in the manner of monitoring the trend of violence among closely related persons in Croatia and the need to address this phenomenon systematically and comprehensively.

The scientific literature on Coronavirus pandemic triggered an avalanche of scientific researches across the globe and it is still very difficult for everyone to stay abreast with the enormity of these scientific efforts and speed at which the knowledge on this topic is generated. The velocity and the scope of the scientific production and publishing on the subject of COVID-19 have become a topic of a great scientific interest of researchers in the field of the information and communication sciences. Macro-level analysis of global scientific literature published on COVID-19 demonstrates (Haghani et al, 2020; Decaro et al., 2020) that studies from various disciplines – far beyond medicine and immunology – have already emerged on this topic. Apart from medicine, this includes fields within environmental and life sciences, and particularly social sciences like psychology, economics, law, safety and many more. Our aim was to analyze the scope, velocity and statistical data on scientific production of Croatian researchers on the subject of COVID-19 to set up the scene for further research. The bibliographic references exported from Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus were analyzed and scientometric methods by using HistCite and VOSviewer were applied to present the preliminary insights in the development of that research domain in the scope of Croatian scientific inputs. As a preliminary study, our research has limits regarding assessment of scientific production in general as well as covering only two citation indexes and excluding possibly relevant specific research databases and open access journals. Presentation will bring preliminary insights about the topic.

In the recent ten years, digital literacy has been seen as a dynamic concept given the fact that information communication technologies are changing and necessarily include the developed skills of the individual to find, transmit, analyze, evaluate information and communication in the digital environment. The current student population is surrounded by new technologies from birth. They use computers, video games, video cameras, mobile phones, digital audio technology and tools, etc. that belong to the digital technologies of the new age. They use digital technologies for entertainment, learning, work, socializing and spend a lot of time using them. They are an integral part of their lives. Due to the long-term and uninterrupted immersion in an environment where digital technologies are ubiquitous, it turns out that today's generations think and process information in different ways. It is evident that students are more often consumers than creators of content needed for academic purposes, and it is only assumed that they have developed the necessary digital skills. The Covid 19 pandemic has created a variety of challenges, including a number of challenges related to learning and education. The paper deals with the ways in which the combination of ubiquitous digital technology, the development of digital skills of students in specific circumstances related to the pandemic is reflected in the study process, use of resources and learning materials, going to the library and perception of the teaching process and its outcomes. The aim of the paper is to offer answers questions about the role of digital literacy skills in the study process. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on changes in learning caused by the use of digital technologies and circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic, with students of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek by the research method of interviews.

Digital literacy provides a critical understanding of the impact of technology on society and the individuals, including privacy, responsible use, and legal and ethical issues. This paper aimed to assess the level of digital literacy in clinical year medical students before and during the pandemic and to investigate whether there is a difference in digital literacy between students who volunteered at the COVID center and students who didn't. The study was conducted from April to May 2021 among 4th to 6th-year medical students (N=150) at the Medical Faculty of the University of Rijeka. An online questionnaire of 40 questions was sent to the target population of students through Facebook groups on three occasions, two weeks apart. Respondents rated their digital literacy before the pandemic with an average score of 3.81, and during the pandemic with an average score of 4.07. A T-test revealed there is a statistically significant difference in the digital literacy of medical students (P> 0.05). In students who did not volunteer, the difference in digital literacy was not statistically significant (P = 0.06), while in students who volunteered there was an improvement in digital literacy during the pandemic (P = 0.038). The results of the research show an increase in self-assessed digital literacy levels in groups of respondents. However, respondents do not link the improvement of digital literacy with online teaching. On the other hand, there is a significant increase in the level of digital literacy in the group of students who volunteered during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to those who did not volunteer.

The youth is considered a vulnerable population as they depend on adult support, given their developmental age. Typically, they live surrounded by adults who are supposed to protect them, having their best interest in mind. As they grow up, young people gradually grow in autonomy and take the responsibility for managing their life matters. Having appropriate and timely information of good quality could help them in making better life choices and sound decisions. Information is important for young people and it affects the quality of their lives. Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that youth information behaviour has been a vibrant research area and that the questions about how the youth acquires, evaluates, and uses information has been drawing a lot of research attention in the last decades. Special attention has been given to health information behaviour as the use of health information may have serious implications on young lives. The acquired information can help, but is also potentially dangerous if it is not true, accurate, current, and unbiased. However, the complex information environment offers a vast array of information of which the reliability is difficult to assess. Challenging times such as the COVID-19 pandemic showed the dramatic scale of the problem. Perhaps the most problematic is the information acquired on social media whose authority is difficult to determine and quality challenging to assess. Yet, much of the youth interaction with information is taking place across social media platforms, putting them at risk of getting lost in the cacophony of user comments. Many studies that were carried out over the last decades show that the youth are not sophisticated information consumers. The digital information environment and the affordances of mobile technology allow speedy searches and encourage rapid evaluation of the credibility of online information. In such circumstances, it is crucial to offer effective information literacy education to teach young people navigate the complex information environment and empower them to be effective information consumers.

A large number of studies have been conducted on the information behaviour and needs of vulnerable groups, especially victims of family violence during (quasi)emergencies and the role of NGOs in providing assistance to their users. Still, in the Republic of Croatia, it is an unexplored area. The lack of research was the reason for conducting a broader study in the Republic of Croatia that would enable a deeper understanding of the described topic. The aim of this study is to fill the gap on the role of NGOs in providing the necessary information to their users in order to identify the best ways and communication channels through which victims who have experienced family violence can access the necessary information in everyday life. The purpose of this study is to investigate the problems encountered by employees of NGOs in accessing and using information from the immediate environment during COVID-19, especially relevant information for preserving and protecting the rights of persons exposed to family violence and potentially other vulnerable groups. Efforts are being made to investigate the experiences and knowledge of NGO professionals regarding the violent victimisation of their users and COVID-19 as a potential criminogenic factor in the occurrence of family violence. A qualitative focus group method was used in the research. Focus groups were conducted from September 2020 to December 2021 in five different cities among NGO employees dealing with the protection of victims of family violence. Given the lack of research on the topic, the research results contribute to the theoretical and practical reflection on the role of NGOs in providing the necessary information to its users at the national and international levels. In the scientific sense, the conducted research opens the way for further research and increases awareness of this topic in the community.

The keyword of the Cartabia reform is “efficiency”: it is invoked by many to speed up the trial, to deliver judgments within a reasonable time and to enhance the image of functional justice amongst citizens with the hope that they will regain confidence in the system. These are issues on which Italy has been taken up, even frequently, with the European institutions. However, the reform is silent on a (due) “quality” of criminal justice. It is an attribute that has to be linked to “efficiency” referring to a judgment delivered in a trial conducted pursuant to procedural rules that enhance the guarantees provided for anyone who participate in it, according to the objective of equity – and, more generally, of justice – prescribed by the higher sources. In the context of the quality of justice, the victim cannot be forgotten, nor can be denied that the idea of vulnerability is not transformed in a concrete definition within the Italian Criminal Procedure Code. The traces of the idea can be found in the wording of general norms, and consequently, the vulnerability assessment is completely left to the discretion of the individual judge, a solution introduced in 2015 with the transposition of the Directive 2012/29/EU. In fact, vulnerability is a notion that has taken hold in the daily life of the courtrooms; it is a concept on which the pandemic has impacted, modifying its connotations and allowing the idea of a weak subject not primarily due to their characteristics or the suffered crimes, rather due to the application of emergency rules. One can think of victims of domestic violence, forced to stay at home with their attackers during the lockdown or while facing the restrictions in red zones. The first post COVID reform should have considered these aspects in order to implement the guarantees for injured persons as well as to enhance the victim’s role (both as a carrier of interests and as a witness). This could have been an opportunity to reflect on vulnerability and to systematically insert it into the Italian Criminal Procedure Code. Unfortunately, the national legislator did not consider connecting these aspects to his idea of ​​an efficient process.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, among the many interventions that the Italian legislator had to carry out to ensure balance between the need to continue judicial activity, on the one side, and the protection of the health of protagonists and supporting actors in the criminal trial on the other side, there is the one relating to the discipline of acts performed before the judicial authority. Among these, the discipline of hearings, interrogations and gathering information from victims of crimes and witnesses deserves to be addressed in detail. While questioning these hypotheses, research has shown that paradoxically, the purpose of protecting the health of judges, public prosecutors and clerks of the court has sometimes exposed parties and defendants to risks for their own health. On top of that, certain procedural rules governing hearings have frustrated the right to an effective defence and caused inevitable repercussions for both the position of the parties and, consequently, the course of justice itself.

The impact of the COVID-19 and the measures taken to contain it with respect to the phenomenon of gender-based violence against women and girls has been defined by many experts as “an emergency in the emergency”. Forced cohabitation during the lockdown phase has in fact represented in some cases the detonator for the explosion of violent behavior, in others the aggravating factor of situations that were previously violent. Furthermore, the confinement of social relationships in a digital dimension has increased a new form of violence against women and girls: the virtual violence. The presentation at the Conference aims at analysing the protection of the rights of women and girls victims of gender-based violence in the time of COVID-19 – also in the light of the innovations introduced by the so-called Codice rosso – highlighting the practical consequences, the critical aspects and what could be the prospects for improvement.

The current sanitary emergency is not an unexpected event. At the beginning of 2020, COVID took the world by surprise; now, at the end of 2021, it is a problem we have to live with. The pandemic changed the notion of vulnerability, and it is necessary to equip support structures for the weakest subjects. The thesis is also confirmed in the relationship between criminal authority and people who, for various reasons, come into contact with it and who, due to the health measures, are in a situation of particular isolation and potential danger in terms of their own psycho-physical integrity. The concept of vulnerability takes on a new meaning: public authority has to take charge of the claims derived (albeit indirectly) from the health emergency. The inert conduct of States is reprehensible: it causes irreparable damage to individual rights, protected by supranational sources.

The COVID-19 epidemic and the measures employed to tackle it have affected (inter alia) intrapersonal relationships and family life. This paper explores how those changed circumstances correlate with the patterns of intimate partner homicide (IPH) in Slovenia. For that purpose, we examine the recent IPH trends and compare them to trends in homicide in general. In the second part of the paper, we look qualitatively into all the cases of IPH that have allegedly occurred during the COVID-19 epidemic in Slovenia and that have been reported in online newspapers. The preliminary investigation into homicides committed during the COVID-19 epidemic reveals that intimate partner killings are likely to have occurred with more frequency, while their patterns have not been substantially changed.

To curb the spread of the virus, Slovenia, like other countries, introduced various measures such as the closure of schools, kindergartens, universities, and cultural institutions, the assembly ban and movement restriction between municipalities (and regions), and in the second lockdown even a night-time curfew (between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., later changed to between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.). In addition to these rules, the authorities advised citizens to work from home and avoid unnecessary social contacts (the recommended Stay-At-Home preventive measure). We have analysed the trends in IPV during the two most strict periods of lockdown and compared them with long-term trends in IPV. Based on the analysis, we assess whether significant changes in numbers of reported IPV during the lockdowns can be detected. Finally, we relate the findings to those derived from the international literature on IPV cases during the pandemic and explain the reasons for any discrepancies.

In several countries, the pandemic of the novel 2019 coronavirus disease has caused situations, in which the health care system was severely overburdened. In such situations, different collisions of duties appear: due to a shortage of personnel, technical equipment or other resources, adequate medical care cannot be provided to all of the patients that would need it. Such situations cause an immense burden to decision-makers, who are put in a position to choose whom to offer a chance of survival. This kind of choice opens complex ethical and legal dilemmas, which have in the past mostly been addressed only on the basis of hypothetical scenarios. In the first part, we confront two ethical principles established in the West (utilitarianism and Kant’s ethics), which are found in discussions on disaster triage, and critically evaluate their criteria for triage. In the second part, we examine the response of the criminal law system in situations of the so-called collisions of duties (when an overburdened individual is unable to fulfil all binding obligations Since issues of triage to some extent reflect the values of the community and reveal the moral standards and ideals of a particular society, the paper also discusses the results of a survey entitled "Questionnaire on Triage among COVID-19", conducted by a research team from the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana.

The COVID-19 epidemic, which had a devastating effect on public health and has completely overburdened public healthcare systems even to this day, strongly affected the way we perceive patients’ rights. As a rule, grounded in the notions of patients’ private autonomy and constitutional cornerstones personal dignity, equal value of life and non-discrimination, the latter became somewhat relative once medical services became a rare commodity, mostly due to a lack of infrastructure and staff. Suddenly, lawyers began to look into ways of how to limit those rights, once taken for granted, in a lawful and constitutional manner. What they came up with, at least in Slovenia, is the fact that the legislation in the field is not well adapted to cases of ongoing emergencies, with rights-limiting interpretations of a few relevant healthcare legislation provisions do not necessarily meet the standard of legal certainty and predictability from the viewpoint of patients as holders of rights.

Virtual life takes over, and real life is relegated to the home. The game is no longer played outside with the kids, but rather in the dark, away from the sunlight. This new right to play and to be educated in the case of poverty depends on accessibility of technology. Family poverty has a strong impact on marginalization and isolation of the child. The example of the United States shows that there is only one step from virtual video game to real life game after 18 years and so-called legal capacity. Now, not with virtual victims, but with primary school children. In the case of a dysfunctional family, poverty, and isolation, the child, even if he or she has so-called legal capacity, is not prepared for real-world rights and responsibilities, but just for the virtual life game, which now includes real-life victims. Around the world, COVID-19 strategies have resulted in widespread significant school closures. School exclusion has been linked to long-term educational, social, and medical consequences in recent studies. COVID pandemic has a significant impact on the mental health of children and adolescents in Croatia. The essential concern is that there are a large number of psychiatrics specialized for children missing, as well as a number of substandard hospital units. Nobody seems to care about the UN Conventin's guiding principle: the best interest of the child.

The actual situation imposes a reflection on the best interests of the child. In particular, the question arises as to whether - or rather how much - it has been re-interpreted by the Covid-19 pandemic. This research offers a helpful insight into the extent to which the pandemic has had an impact on the protection of children's rights, as well as to question the impact that the health emergency will have in the post covid era. There have been numerous compressions of children's rights due to Covid-19 over the past two years. Among the many that could be addressed, special attention will be given here to the child's right to live with his or her parents, the right to psycho-physical and emotional development and the right to play and recreation. The chosen research method, which consists of an analysis of case law and a comparative view of different legal systems, seems appropriate for identifying possible answers to the outstanding issues in the area of protection of children's rights.

The “new normal” brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic was cause of many disturbances in various areas of human lives. The new circumstances of life demanded inter alia drafting of the new definitions for certain legal concepts and revisiting of the standardised practices, including in the area of international and private international family law. Some of the most challenging questions have been posed regarding the parental child abduction cases which are subject to the 1980 Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and its EU complementary, the Council Regulation (EC) No 2201/2003 of 27 November 2003 Concerning Jurisdiction and the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Matrimonial Matters and the Matters of Parental Responsibility. While it is expected that lockdowns or other COVID-19-related measures limiting cross-border movements temporary contribute to lesser number of abduction cases, it is nevertheless important to study the extent to which such restrictions have played a role in the ongoing (and new) abduction cases. Always thorny questions of interpreting the grounds on which the child’s return may be denied, becomes all the more difficult with the threat of the COVID-19 and different measures put in place in different states. Not less important is the ability of the competent authorities, including the central authorities, the courts and the social welfare centres to provide timely responses in these cases. The main purpose of this paper is thus to assess whether and to what extent has the COVID-19 pandemic and the “new normal” affected the operation and practices of the competent authorities in cross-border child abduction cases.

It is now axiomatic statement that the corona crisis, as a global health, social and political phenomenon, has affected various aspects of the social sphere and the range of actors and social groups. Likewise, research conducted in Croatia (e.g. Čorkalo-Biruški et al., 2021) has shown that young people are perceived as one of the two most severely affected social groups. Changes in education provision and the dynamics of sociability have affected the youth population to the extent that the European Union has declared 2022 the European Year of Youth (EYY, 2022), just to somehow "make up" this social group. If we accept the initial assumption that young people are seriously affected by the crisis, the next step that interests us, and which is central to this presentation, is the extent to which national youth has changed to respond to current challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis of changes in youth policy is the topic of the paper. The aforementioned analysis is based on data collected in the research "Rebuilding Society: Longitudinal Research on Social Recovery in Croatia after the Coronavirus Pandemic (ReSPoC)" and is complimented by public policy analysis of the youth sector. The presentation consists of two parts. firstly, we present data on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth, after which we provide an overview of current goals and instruments of youth policy adopted by state and public authorities in response to the current crisis. Hence, the research question becomes – how did Croatia react to challenges young people have faced in the midst of corona crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects has been named a “Child Rights Crisis”: The pandemic has exacerbated structural inequalities and social vulnerabilities, and children are emerging as largely unseen victims of the pandemic. Overall, children have had many restrictions to their rights; their ability to attend school, play, rest, engage in culture, meet with grandparents, and exposure to parents’ mental challenges, social problems, or strains due to financial problems. The crisis has profoundly affected children’s wellbeing and welfare, and unequally so: Those in already disadvantaged situations are particularly affected. Overall, children’s rights and their vulnerable position are easily overlooked in emergency conditions and post-crisis measures. This paper presents a critical children’s rights analysis of the Swedish strategy of dealing with the pandemic. Two main materials are examined and analysed: The expressed motives and arguments of the Swedish government on the strategy, and reports and other empirical material from Swedish (and Nordic) children’s rights organisations on the impact of the pandemic on children’s rights. Key questions posed are: Which (of) children’s rights have been (and are) at risk, in Sweden? In what ways were children’s rights included and motivated in the choice of response to the pandemic situation? Three main results of the study are that 1) several weaknesses in vulnerable children’s rights – such as in access to social support and child psychiatry – are long recognised and, in essence, not related to the pandemic; 2) the Swedish strategy has, in a number of important ways, been mindful of children’s rights – in particular by keeping schools open throughout the pandemic; and 3) the post-pandemic situation calls for political responsibility in ensuring (all) children’s rights.

More and more attention is paid not only to the treatment of mental disorders but also to the quality of life, increasing active years of life. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, mental disorders can be divided into two groups. The first includes stress caused (information stress, reaction to forced social isolation). The second includes the long-term mental consequences associated with the defeat of the CNS by the virus itself. Among the factors influencing the mental health of the study contingent, we identified the following: lack of awareness of one's mental health, fear for health, the influence of social networks, changes in the economic situation, lifestyle changes (physical activity, sleep and nutrition, isolation and social deprivation). Our study showed that quarantine restrictions led to the development of depressive reactions, anxiety reactions, irritability, internal tension, and anhedonia. In turn, CNS lesions led to the development of cognitive impairment (decreased concentration, decreased short-term memory, difficulty planning activity). Also, the contingent of the research were diagnosed with asthenia, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, and somato-autonomic disorders. These symptoms were mainly embedded in the concepts of mixed anxiety and depression disorder, adjustment disorder. In our research, we proposed to use a multimodal approach that included not only the use of pharmacotherapy but also psychotherapy, psychoeducation, and psychological support. This allowed not only to fight the symptoms but also to form a health-centered lifestyle and strengthen the psychosocial resource. The effectiveness of the chosen approach was confirmed by the analysis of the use of psychometric scales (HAM-A, HAM-D, MADRS before and after treatment). Thus, we can say that a multimodal approach to the treatment of non-psychotic disorders on the background of COVID-19 has shown its effectiveness and can be recommended for the treatment of such patients.

Since April 2015 and the closure of the six national forensic hospitals, the Italian national mental health service faces the unique challenge of developing a new system of care for individuals charged with a serious criminal offence who suffer from severe mental illness. Forensic in-patient treatment is now delivered at a regional level in forensic structures known as REMS. In accordance with new legislation, these 20-bed locked units, with a regional availability of one forensic bed per 100.000 inhabitants, have been developed as part of a health and social reform of the general mental health services. This reorganization of services helps the development of community-based treatment programs for forensic users. In this work, we present an update on how the whole sector has worked since its launch. It will be described the legal framework underpinning the reform, and two new recent sentences aimed to improve the community services’ assistance and care of those under the forensic path. Early epidemiologic papers describe the national inmates’ population, enhancing questions on best clinical practices to tackle their complex need profiles.

In the period of the first wave of COVID-19, which appeared first in Europe in Italy, it caused very dangerous events in Italian prisons, including the uprisings with 12 victims. Lockdown measures with sudden interruption of visits and cancellation of leaves caused the shortage in availability of psychoactive substances in prisons. In the presentation the preventive measures for such events will be presented and also the consequences of increased drug use in prisons and increased rate of admissions in forensic hospitals. The use of new psychoactive substances in prisons is causing an increased rate of various consequences, including on mental health of prisoners.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the largest psychiatric hospital in Croatia, University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapče remained open and accessible to patients in cases of emergency, both for visits and admissions if the patient needed emergency psychiatric care. However, some epidemiological restrictive measures were imposed, and fewer beds were available due to the social distancing measures. The objective of this study was to assess hospital admissions and related clinical entities in years prior (2019), during (2020), and after (2021) the lockdown and earthquake in the University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapče. Data for 5164 people seeking emergency psychiatric help were analysed from the admission notes and medical history sheets. Descriptive statistical analyses, chi-square tests, and ANOVA analysis were performed to assess temporal trends of 2019, 2020, and 2021. Binomial logistic regression was calculated to detect predictive diagnostic categories for suicidality. A significant decrease in the number of patients visiting the emergency department was found between 2019 and 2021. Regarding hospital admissions, compared to 2019 (81.6%), the lower admission rate in 2020 (70,1%) almost reached pre-pandemic figures in 2021 (80.1%). Significant differences in clinical entities were observed for F3x, F4x and F6x in men, and F0x and F6x for women. Although the pandemic did not end in 2021, the admission rate almost came back to the 2019 values. This finding suggests a collective adaptation to the “new normal” and implies that the psychiatric service in Croatia has regained its previous capacity in 2021, as the clinical and organizational indicators almost reached pre-pandemic levels.

When children are concerned, the world is united: due to their sensibility and dependence, they need to be cherished and treated well and with respect; they should grow up free from discrimination, poverty, sexist language and behaviour; they must be able to overcome climate changes and ongoing environmental pollution. They should live in peace. Unfortunately, our reality today is somehow different. “It’s just adults playing their games”, says Masha (11) from Ukraine, as she explains to her little brother the loud shelling noises. Unfortunately, adults are used to playing “games” that are incomprehensible to children. Trapped in “war games”, adults do not consider their impact on children; they forget that children to whom they will hand over the torch of future prosperity must be well educated, confident and strong. It is the adults’ responsibility to create an environment in which children will be able to fulfil their potentials. The organized and orchestrated protection of children in armed conflict within the UN system began in 1997 when the UN General Assembly took the unprecedented decision to create a mandate for protecting children from hostilities. That decision has been followed by a range of different activities undertaken by different UN actors. The celebration of the 25th anniversary of the existence of that system requires a comprehensive elaboration on undertaken activities, plans and programmes, as well as a critical consideration of the expectations on current and future challenges. Therefore, the focus of the proposed presentation is on the following questions: a) what challenges have been recognized as important in protecting children from hostilities; b) whose activities are considered as important; c) what specific measures have been taken so far; d) what are the challenges ahead? Every action we are taking right now must be guided by the fact that current endeavours could encourage further progress. The world of tomorrow will be shaped by how we raise and educate our children today. Graça Machel once said: “In considering the future of children, we must be daring!” Are we daring enough?

In recent years, the issue of unaccompanied migrant minors has unfortunately often been on the table. The current refugee crisis resulting from the war in Ukraine has been the latest reminder of how important it is for both international law and national legislations to properly address this issue. But even before the Ukrainian war, the problem was high on the agenda of international lawyers. The migrant crisis in Europe in the 2010s resulted in numerous unaccompanied children being left without proper protection. On top of that, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the problem, as national authorities used lockdown as an opportunity to push-back migrants and implement anti-immigration laws. In dealing with the problem of unaccompanied migrant minors, it must be borne in mind that those children find themselves in the situation of multiple vulnerabilities. On the one hand, they deserve protection on grounds of being children, and on the other hand, they deserve protection on grounds of being migrants, possibly refugees. In spite of such multiple vulnerabilities, their protection is often ineffective and they are being exposed to violence, exploitation and abuse. That is why it is first and foremost necessary to differentiate in practice between migrant minors and migrant adults. That way, the protection would not only involve respect for principles which are applicable to all migrants, primarily the principle of non-refoulement, but would include guarantees specifically tailored for children, such as legal representation, guardianship, family reunification and others. Nothing short of applying an entire corpus of rights will be sufficient to adequately approach this problem and achieve the respect for “the best interest of the child” principle, stipulated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The aim of consumer insolvency proceedings, as the sui generis out-of-court proceedings, is to release the honest consumer from the obligations that remained after the liquidation of his unexempt property and the distribution of collected funds to creditors (so-called, institute of release from remaining obligations). Thus, in the case of consumer bankruptcy, we distinguish between a material and legal goals that are applied only to the consumer which is precisely differentia specifica in relation to corporate bankruptcies. On the other hand, minors are natural persons who have not yet reached the stage of development when they are considered to be mentally and physically mature and able to take care of themselves, their rights and interests. Doctrinal analyses states that due to insufficient life experience and insufficient maturity, they are under the direct care and concern of their family (primarily parents as legal representatives) and society, in order to protect their rights and interests. These are two topics that will be connected into one by analysing the issue of the position of minors in consumer bankruptcy proceedings. In this sense, this paper intends to point out the vagueness of existing solutions in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, while trying to impose a de lege ferenda solution about this problem.

Criminal cases with child victims are are under the jurisdiction of the High Criminal Court of the Republic of Croatia following the appeal against the judgments of 15 County Courts in the Republic of Croatia. The High Criminal Court began its work on January 2, 2021, and the first cases were received in March 2021. According to the provisions of the Juvenile Courts Act, a juvenile council was established to resolve cases with child victims. The most frequently received cases of criminal legal protection are criminal offenses against sexual abuse and exploitation of a child, more precisely, sexual abuse of a child under fifteen years of age and its qualifying forms, and serious criminal offense of sexual abuse and exploitation of a child. Over the period of one year, 61 cases in which children are victims were received, of which 42 cases were archived (resolved and sent to the first instance court). The verdicts handed down in criminal cases involving children are related to crimes committed before the pandemic, and they were decided by the High Criminal Court only on appeal during the pandemic. The pandemic did not affect the coverage of the sessions of the councils, nor the public ones requested by the parties, and the defendants participated in the sessions via video link if they were in pre-trial detention. Decisions of the High Criminal Court firmly show the commitment of the Youth Council to implement the objective of Directive 2011/93 / EU to subject the severe forms of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children to effective, proportionate, and dissuasive penalties.

In recent times, humanity has experienced the devastating effects of the COVID-19 crisis, which has caused sharp ruptures in different spheres of social life. Detrimental effects of the almost unprecedented crisis have triggered an avalanche of research to explore the phenomenon in focus while conducting scientific investigation that matters. Despite the rapid influx of scholarly articles, recent literature has shown that there is still a remarkable lack of scholarly attention on disasters and their impact on children. While trying to contribute to and address the noted research gap, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that explores pathways to violence against children in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic in Croatia with a focus on the national lockdown. The sample consisted of 63 randomly selected police files involving 65 suspects of criminal offences with elements of violence against 108 closely related children at the five police departments centred in Pula, Rijeka, Zagreb, Split and Osijek. In order to “capture” the violence that emerged during the lockdown and was reported after restrictive measures were lifted, a seven-month time frame (March–September, 2020) was implemented as an additional sampling parameter. The study has revealed that most children repeatedly experience multiple forms of violence within the family that are damaging to their health and wellbeing. Infringement of child's rights was the most prevalent principal offence allegedly committed to the detriment of both boys and girls who were mostly primary-schoolers. Similarly, consistent with previous findings, the study demonstrated that in most cases, alleged abusers are first-time suspected fathers in their 30s with high school education and average financial assets. This calls for future research and the implementation of effective preventive measures to improve family resilience in the face of disasters yet to come.

When the restrictive measures were introduced globally after the first COVID-19 cases in 2020, experts in the field of mental health questioned its impact on the mental health of the population, indicating the possible higher occurrence of suicidal ideation and behaviour. Despite the ongoing discussion among experts on the phenomenology of suicide and unclear definitions, for purpose of this research, we have defined suicidality as either idea, intention, or urge for self-destruction, hence taking one’s own life. Taking into account seasonal variation in suicidality rates, we drew data from the admission reports for January, April, and June for each respective year between 2019 and 2022 in University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapče. Data on age, sex, diagnoses, and presence of any suicidal signs were analysed using descriptive statistical methods and binomial regression. The objective was to determine the predictive value of diagnostic categories for suicidality in each year and month observed. Furthermore, a need for a uniform assessment of suicide risk will be discussed.

The main objective of this study was to assess behavioural changes in forensic patients (those assessed as not guilty by reason of insanity and sent for an involuntary forensic treatment) during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. There were 82 patients treated at the Department for Forensic Psychiatry of the University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapče in 2020,45 of which stayed in the department for the whole year. Data were extracted from their charts and from the nurses’ reports about their body masses, additional therapy prescribed and incidents at the ward. During the lock-down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the body masses of the forensic patients decreased significantly in the first weeks of the lock-down and stayed low during the rest of 2020. Patients used fewer additional antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, hypnotics and pain killers in April 2020 as compared to February 2020. In June 2020, the use of these drugs returned to pre-pandemic levels, with the exception of antipsychotics. In August 2020, painkiller use increased to higher than pre-pandemic levels. The number of incidents during lock-down was lower compared to pre-pandemic levels.