ADAPTATION OF THE SERBIAN DESTINY: constitutional dissolution of Yugoslavia from the second session of Avnoj until 1974

The consistent realization of that idea was unsuccessful with the unification and creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918.

Hidden and even public obstructions to common life were manifested even before World War II, and especially during the capitulation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the fascist occupation in the period 1941-1945. years.

However, even during the People’s Liberation Struggle, as early as 1943, at the second session of Avnoj, important constitutive decisions were made on the formation of a state of equal peoples, which means federal states. In this way, constitutional continuity with the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was formally interrupted.

These decisions, among other things, determined the future federal state system based on the sovereignty of the constituent Yugoslav peoples with their right to self-determination. However, in practice it turned out that what was written in Avnoj’s decisions never came true, that those decisions laid the foundations of inequality for the Serbian people and impeded the right to self-determination. The Constitution of January 31, 1946, which constituted the state system of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, preserved the inequality of the Serbian people: the fragmentation of their national being, without the right to act as a whole, as well as the fragmentation of the Republic of Serbia and the Serbian people.

The Serbian people have never formally pronounced on the position that was imposed on them and on the supposed equality, which de facto did not exist.

The first article of the 1946 Constitution establishes that the FPRY is a “popular federal state in a republican form, a community of equal peoples who, on the basis of the right to self-determination, including the right to secession, have expressed their will to live together in a federal state. ” That article lists the six people’s republics that make up the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia.

According to article 11, “each people’s republic has its own Constitution”, which is adopted “independently” and which must “maintain the characteristics of the republic and must be in accordance with the Constitution of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia”.

However, already in the third paragraph of article 1, the Constitution modifies the jurisdiction of a single republic, establishing that “the People’s Republic of Serbia has in its composition the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and the Autonomous Region of Kosovo-Metohija”. In this way, the constitutional capacity of the Republic of Serbia was already limited, because it was placed in an unequal constitutional position relative to other republics.

The 1946 Constitution prescribed that the demarcation of the territories of the people’s republics be carried out by the National Assembly of the FPRY, on the condition that “the borders of the people’s republic cannot be changed without its consent” (article 12). However, the National Assembly did not do that, so this delicate inter-ethnic issue remained open.

Even by the decisions that determined the federal system, no special laws were passed on the territories and borders of the republics, except on the border between Vojvodina and FR Croatia, which is not precisely determined. Even today, almost 75 years after the approval of the 1946 Constitution, border problems between most republics remain open. In a preliminary and informal way, the borders were determined by a narrow circle of political officials of the PCY. Unfortunately, the current border disputes of the Republic of Croatia with Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia continue after the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

Already after the promulgation of the 1946 Constitution, through constitutional and legal changes, the power of the federal state apparatus was reduced, mainly through decentralization: the transfer of powers from the central state to lower state and local organs, with the gradual introduction of workers’ self-government in 1950.

This marked the beginning of a process that lasted until 1974, a process of gradual diminution of the powers and constitutional rights of Yugoslavia, while the 1974 Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia did not create the conditions for its disappearance and disintegration.

Partial interests prevailed, manifesting themselves systematically with the adoption of constitutional amendments in 1968 and 1971, which were a significant step towards the dissolution of Yugoslavia … The basic constitutional concept was changed by Amendment 20, which equated autonomous provinces with republics . In this way, Yugoslavia became even more fragmented, and the Serbian people and Serbia were deprived of their rights and the sovereignty of the federal state was significantly reduced.

Yugoslavia is economically completely divided. All central funds (Yugoslavs) were liquidated and transferred to the autonomous republics and provinces, with the exception of the Fund for the Development of Underdeveloped Republics and Provinces and the Central Foreign Exchange Fund, which remained in dispute. The Central Exchange Fund was transferred to the republics and provinces against constitutional provisions in 1975, and after twenty years, in 1985, the republics and provinces stopped paying subsidies to the Development Fund.

These amendments, among other issues, separated the territories from the autonomous provinces of Serbia. In these territories, the authorities of the Republic of Serbia, although formally the authorities for the entire territory, according to the approved amendments, did not have appropriate legislative, administrative and judicial powers that were later minimized by the Constitution of 1974, which further limited the rights of the Serbian people. Serbia and increased its inequality.