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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Eleven new public administration laws to be adopted

Belgrade, 11 January 2008

Serbian Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government Milan Markovic said that during 2007, the Ministry mostly worked on the preparation of laws because good legal solutions lead to good practice.

Speaking at a press conference at which he presented the results of the Ministry's work in 2007, Markovic voiced hope that 11 new laws will be adopted this year, and that Serbian parliament will adopt as soon as possible the Bill on associations, which will regulate the work of non-governmental organisations in Serbia.

It is also necessary to adopt the law on political parties because there are approximately 550 parties in Serbia right now. The new law should stipulate conditions for setting up a political party.

Other laws that are expected to be adopted are laws on national councils of national minorities, administrative procedure, administrative disputes, employees in territorial autonomies and local self-governments and their salaries.

The Minister said that right now there are more than 20,000 employees in Serbian local self-governments, for which there is no need and that is why the new law will limit the number of employees in relation to the number of citizens.

At the same time, he recalled that the laws on confirming the European Charter on Local Self-Government and the state seal of the Republic of Serbia were adopted, and that the working version of the law on birth registers has been prepared, which will enable citizens to get the birth certificate in any municipality.

Markovic stressed that the issue of property in the ownership of local self-governments remained unresolved, while all other necessary laws pertaining to the functioning of municipalities have been adopted which will stabilise their activities.

He said that the previous year was marked by instability in local self-governments, and the adoption of the set of laws will contribute to stabilisation of conditions in municipalities throughout Serbia.

The result of such instability was dismissal of 11 municipal assemblies and nearly 40 blockades in the work of units of local self governments which do not require dismissal, but in fact are facing blockade, said the Minister.

He pointed to the fact that not a single of the 11 local self-government bodies mentioned would have been dismissed if the set of laws on local self-governments, local elections, territorial organisation and the capital city had been adopted in the previous years.

Markovic said however that our system of self governance completely fulfills international standards which exist in the Council of Europe and the EU. He added that only one more law, regarding their property, remains to be adopted and it will be adopted during the spring session of parliament.