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Lawyer Rodoljub Sabic asked the authorities to “refrain from irresponsible movements in the procedure of amendments to the Serbian Constitution and at least try to explain to the public the meaning of adopting such a proposal in the current circumstances.”
“Given the diametrically opposed views of the Government and the profession on the content of the proposal, a serious and broad debate is necessary, and the Government does not appear to have the will to do so. he told Beta.
“And if the government, counting on a practically one-party Assembly, decided to quickly approve, by a two-thirds majority, the proposal and then the law to modify the Constitution, we would face an even more irresponsible adventure, with the obligation of of 60 days, the citizens will pronounce on the matter, in referendum ”, he said.
Sabic indicated that the Government presented to the public the proposal for changes to the Constitution as new, which is not true, and recalled that it adopted the same proposal more than two years ago, in 2018, and presented it to the Assembly.
“The Parliamentary Commission on Constitutional Affairs and Legislation (then) supported the proposal and forwarded it to the deputies for adoption. For reasons known only to the authorities, nothing more was done. In June of this year, after the elections, the new government is in line with the usual practice. It withdrew from parliamentary processing all previous proposals, including this one, “he said.
He added that the current change proposal, as well as the previous ones, does not contain concrete solutions, but only lists the norms that the Government wants to change, and relies on the amendments prepared by the Ministry of Justice even earlier.
“Although the Ministry announced in the fall of 2018 that the Venice Commission concluded that the amendments were in line with its recommendations, it remains highly controversial to this day whether that is true,” Sabic said.
“Numerous representatives of the profession, the academic community and the civil sector point out that these amendments do not ensure the realization of the basic objective of the reform: to reduce the influence of politics on the work of the judiciary, on the contrary!” He added.
Sabic believes: “We have been returned years ago, but essentially to a worse situation”, and furthermore, as announced, the mandate of the current parliament will last only until early 2022, when early elections are announced, so even “it does not seem realistic that in that period the Assembly completes the procedure of “reform of the Constitution”.
“It is much more realistic that in mid-2022, a new government will again withdraw the proposal from the procedure, which will add two more years already lost,” added Sabic.
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