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The abridged review of the contents of DRAFT AMMENDMENT FOR THE CHANGE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL POSITION OF THE AP VOJVODINA I WHY CHANGES
1. Centralist government structure has been
founded In the present Constitution of Republic of Serbia. This structure
does not take into consideration the existing differences among its constituents
– from the north to the south of the Republic. The constitution of FR Yugoslavia
does not contain guarantees for the existence of autonomous provinces in
the Republic of Serbia.
2. The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia
and the understated constitutional solutions within it allowed the enactment
of republic laws which consolidated the centralist system of rule in the
Republic of Serbia even more. Administering all of the social and industrial
institutions is concentrated within the republic executive authority,
all of the public material goods have been transformed into the state
ownership. Villages, municipalities, cities and provinces are left with
little or none of their responsibilities and material resources.
3. Under the presumption that nothing changes,
the present Constitution of the Republic of Serbia and its understated
quality would enable every following executive authority to manipulate
the parliament, even marginalize it. In the future, the citizens would
have no influence on those in power, they would be the servants of the
state, dependant even of the operative executive authorities.
4. The existence of the Autonomous Province
of Vojvodina has been provided for by the Constitution of the Republic
of Serbia. However, all of the autonomous rights the Vojvodina has are
guaranteed by the Constitution are conditioned by legal solutions brought
about subsequently. The present constitution does not guarantee the AP
Vojvodina any sources of income which would be a material basis to its
autonomous rights. By the subsequently brought republic laws, the Vojvodina
has been practically deprived of the little constitutional rights it had.
That is why present autonomy of the Vojvodina is without its contents:
no jurisdiction, no material goods and independent sources of income,
it has no capacity to direct its own development. Republic authorities
decide on everything. These authorities rob the Vojvodina mercilessly
and degrade it culturally, at the same time they are hiding behind slogans
proclaiming the so called unity of the Republic of Serbia. The consequences
of such an attitude of the Republic of Serbia towards the AP Vojvodina
are obvious to most of its citizens, however, one does not see the causes.
Those causes are hidden within the present Constitution of the Republic
of Serbia and the adoption of subsequent system laws.
5. The Vojvodina can not ensure its characteristic
economic and cultural interests and other interests of importance for
the everyday life of her citizens merely by being more consistent in the
applying of the present Constitution of the Republic of Serbia or its
corrections. The above mentioned is possible only through a new constitutional
solution of the autonomous position of the Vojvodina, that would be protected
from current changes of the power ratio in the parliament, and also through
guarantees in the Constitution of FR Yugoslavia, should there be Yugoslavia.
II WHAT CHANGES 1. Citizen, Province,
Republic, Federation
1.1 We suggest that the new constitutions of the states
of Serbia and Yugoslavia be based on the following principles:
1.2 In the new constitutions of Serbia and Yugoslavia one
should clearly divide rights and responsibilities which are in under exceptional
jurisdiction of the state from those which are under the exceptional jurisdiction
of the Autonomous Provinces, and those that can be decided on and dealt
with together.
1.3 We suggest that the state should have exceptional jurisdiction
over the arranging affairs only within the realm of national defense,
national security, foreign affairs, monetary system, bases of the economic
and fiscal system and issues similar to that.
1.4 We demand constitutional guarantees regarding
the territorial, political, economic, and cultural autonomy of the
Vojvodina by the new Republic and Federal Constitution. We want the
Autonomous Province of Vojvodina with the legislative, judicial and executive
power within the realms of her autonomy.
2. Territorial Autonomy of Vojvodina.
The territory of the AP Vojvodina will be constituted by
the present territories of her municipalities. The borders of the AP Vojvodina
are administrative ones.
3. Political Autonomy of Vojvodina
3.1 Respecting the republic and federal constitution, the
AP Vojvodina will bring about her own constitutive act. The AP Vojvodina
would regulate in details all of tie issues in the fields of economic
activities, area planning, health and pension insurance, education, culture,
information, organization of the inter-national relations and similar
on the basis of this act and respective basic federal and republic laws.
3.2 The Province judicial system would be the
continuation of the judicial autonomy of the Vojvodina, with the existing
responsibilities of municipal and local courts, and newly formed Department
of the Supreme Court of Serbia in the Vojvodina. The proposal draws a
clear division line between the competence of the Department in the Vojvodina
and the Supreme Court of Serbia. 3.3 The Province Executive Bodies of Authority would be
responsible primarily to the Assembly of the Vojvodina. Responsibilities
in enforcing the law, establishing the edicts, and operation would be
mostly in departments of municipalities in the Vojvodina and for
the most part in the Province, and not in the Republic. However, the Republic
or Federation would have the capacity of controlling them. Municipalities
of the Vojvodina would have the right to form the unions of municipalities,
i.e. regions (for example Srem, Banat, Backa), according to their own
interests and clearly established jurisdictions.
3.4 Through the suitable electoral system, we
suggest a constitutive system of the Vojvodina with three chambers: Chamber
of Citizens, Chamber of Nationalities, and Chamber of Communities, with
their separate jurisdictions, and with the mutual dependencies regarding
passing the province laws determined in advance. Such constituted Assembly
of the AP Vojvodina would ensure equal civil rights – sovereignty of a
citizen as an individual, the principle of national equality of all nationalities
in the Vojvodina through their representatives in the body of the assembly
and the protection of the local interests of the Vojvodina municipalities
including their right to connect, due to its interests, on the local and
regional level.
4. Economic Autonomy of Vojvodina
4.1 We ask of the Republic Constitution to establish, and
of the Federal Constitution to guarantee the right of the Vojvodina to
regulate and to economize its own natural resources and goods created
with work of her citizens; within the unique state fiscal system, to decide
independently regarding her own income and expenditure, and make independent
decisions regarding her own economic development within a mutually established
state macro-economic politics
4.2 Due to special interests of the Vojvodina
we have pointed out a demand in the PROPOSAL that the Vojvodina has a
significant role in creating the state agrarian politics. The AP Vojvodina
would protect food producers in the Vojvodina from the state and any other
monopoly and ensure their right to manage their own market surplus and
their right to join together because of their interests.
5. Cultural Autonomy of Vojvodina
Includes non-industrial fields of work. Regarding the non-industrial
fields, such as health and social protection, pension and invalid insurance,
education, culture, information, and similar, we suggest that federal
and republic laws regulate only the basic rights and obligations, on the
basis of which the AP Vojvodina and her municipalities would manage the
functioning of these fields in the Vojvodina by her on laws and edicts.
6. Inter-nationality Relations in Autonomous Vojvodina
6.1 Special attention in the PROPOSAL was given to the
issue of inter-nationality relations in the Vojvodina. It has been pointed
out that guaranteeing the principles of national equality in the Vojvodina
means that, from the national point of view, no one would be treated neither
as a majority nor as a minority, nor would one have any special rights
apart from those that protect any national minority in comparison to any
national majority in any smaller or larger national surroundings.
6.2 In the Proposal, we have made an itemized
list of the rights of all of the nationality adherents, both as citizens
and as the adherent of ethnic communities which would, with the application
of the principals of positive discrimination, be guaranteed by the constitutive
act of the AP Vojvodina, and would also be guaranteed on the level of
the state.
Finally, such autonomy of the Vojvodina, established in the Constitution
of the Republic of Serbia, and guaranteed in the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, could not be changed without the approval by the
Assembly of the AP Vojvodina and her citizens.
Note: The document of the Proposal for the Change of the Constitutional Position of the AP Vojvodina has been signed in Novi Sad on 29 January 1997.
Signatories of the Proposals come from 9 political parties, and 14 non-party organizations in the Vojvodina. The proposal is the basic mutual program document of the members of the Vojvodina Movement. |