The subject of research in this final thesis is the position and legal protection of minority shareholders in joint stock companies in the Republic of Croatia. The rights of minority shareholders are an essential element of company rights and the protection offered by the legislator to such groups of shareholders is visible in several places in the law itself. The aim of the legislator is to establish a balance between the majority and minority shareholders, given that their interests may be in conflict with each other. Every joint stock company as an internal company is based on two important assumptions. The first one is that under equal conditions all shareholders have an equal position in the company. And the second one is that of the so-called shareholder democracy, by which all decisions in the general assembly are made in a way that respect the position of the majority. The fundamental right of all shareholders, including those who have only one share, is the right to vote at the general meeting. Minority shareholders, but also shareholders in general, in addition to legal provisions, can be protected by the statute, so that various restrictions are prescribed to the majority shareholder, all in order to protect the minority. Croatian law follows the methods of protection accepted in other legal systems and distinguishes: measures to protect shareholders from the actions of other shareholders, measures to protect shareholders from the activities of company bodies, measures to protect shareholders in affiliated companies and measures to protect shareholders in takeovers. %