ABSTRACT
The real history of the Croatian parliament began in 1990, even though the Sabor, as a form of political decision-making of the aristocracy, had been present since the early Middle Ages. Although the Sabor had been set up as a permanent state assembly (with limited legislative, administrative, and judicial functions), it was only founded as a modern civil parliament in 1848 (albeit with limited national sovereignty and only certain elements of the representation of the estates). However, crucial for the valorization of the role of the Croatian Sabor from the Middle Ages to 1990 was the fact that Croatia was not an independent state. Thus the Sabor, with minor interruptions, operated within the Habsburg and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In short, despite the relatively long existence of the Sabor as a political institution, its lack of autonomy and the non-existence of democratic traditions clearly indicate that the parliamentary tradition in Croatian political life before 1990 was rather rudimentary.
