Jared Kushner, son-in-law of the American president Donald Trump, withdrew from the project to build a hotel in Belgrade, that is, a luxury complex that Kushner's investment company "Afinity Partners" planned to build on that site.
However, the lex specialis, as long as it is in force, allows demolition General Staff, bringing in another investor to replace Kushner, but also using lex specialis to conclude other contracts that would be harmful to Serbia, and lucrative for investors at the will of the regime, so lawyer Rodoljub Šabić points out that "perhaps the only defense against further abuse of lex specialis is public resistance."
The decisive role of TOK
On the same day that the news of Kushner's resignation was published by the Wall Street Journal, Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime (TOK) filed an indictment against the Minister of Culture of Serbia Nikola Selaković due to illegality when removing the property of cultural property over the buildings of the General Staff.
"Because significant projects should unite, not divide, and out of respect for the citizens of Serbia and Belgrade, we are withdrawing our application and this time we are stepping aside," said a spokesman for Kushner's firm, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
It is the second time that the rebellious citizens have foiled the million-dollar scams - it was the first time lithium mining, and in the case of the General Staff, the decisive role was played by the TOK, which has been conducting an investigation since May due to suspicions of falsification of documents on the basis of which Government of Serbia revoked the status of the General Staff building as a cultural asset.
However, even if Kushner really abandons construction on the site of the General Staff, the question remains what will happen to that complex, because in order to legally enable its demolition, the lex specialis was adopted, which provides for the express demolition of the General Staff.
Kushner's resignation acts as a disincentive
Lawyer Rodoljub Šabić tells "Vreme" that the lex specialis is "formally in force".
"It formally gives the authorities the possibility to act in accordance with it, including finding a new investor, but at least as far as the investor is concerned, it should not be simple," assesses Šabić.
He points out that we should not forget that the lex specialis was preceded by a series of illegal moves by the government.
"Those illegal moves by the authorities range from pressure on institutions for the protection of cultural heritage, through the falsification of documents to revoke the status of cultural property, for which the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime is conducting proceedings - to the legally unfounded, forgery-based, decision of the Government of Serbia to revoke the status of cultural property. It was only when the investigation showed that there was a well-founded suspicion that ministers in the Government of Serbia and their closest collaborators committed criminal acts in order to implement a 'combination' agreed in advance, in defiance of all laws, then In the emergency procedure, a legally scandalous lex specialis was proposed," says Šabić.
He notes that everything is now known to the wider public, including potential investors, and that it "certainly has a disincentive, repulsive effect" on them.
Is the Lex Tennis scenario possible?
There is also the question of whether the lex specialis for the General Staff could be used to conclude other lucrative contracts for investors at the will of the authorities, as the so-called Lex Tennis was used for.
Amendments to the Law on agricultural to the land, namely Lex Tenis, were adopted at the end of 2015 in order to enable the arrival of large investors such as the German pig breeder Clemens Tenis.
Shortly after Vučić came to power, he was heralded as the savior of Serbian pig farming, who would open a series of farms and slaughterhouses Vojvodina.
That's why the state came up with a law according to which part of the atar of each municipality can be allocated by prior right and thus taken away from the lease to the small paors who cultivated that land for decades.
Although, like Kushner in the case of the General Staff and Tenis, in addition to adopting Lex Special, he gave up investing in Serbia, Lex Tenis provided long-term land leases (up to 30 years) to many who submitted an investment plan.
On the basis of Lex Tenis and the right of priority of the lease for investors, contracts were concluded by other domestic and foreign companies. By 2018, the commission Ministry of Agriculture approved a total of 22 investment projects for the lease of approximately 8700 hectares.
The most significant investors who received land for 30 years on this basis are: Foodland, as part of the Atlantic Group, which received the right to lease land in the municipality of Svilajnac for the needs of primary production and processing; Mitros Fleischwaren in Sremska Mitrovica, a company owned by the Austrian Gierlinger, which applied for land to provide a raw material base for its slaughterhouse, and Master Fruits, an investor who received a lease in the municipality of Prokuplje for the development of fruit growing and processing capacities.
The lease of land for up to 30 years was then made possible to the Italian group La Linea Verde, the company Yakuma, in which the French company Andros has a share, as well as the company Yaylafiliz, which is majority owned by investors from Turkey.
From domestic businessmen, the project of the Andex company from Subotica, which was granted a lease of 30 hectares of land for fruit processing and production of alcoholic beverages, received a positive assessment from the Commission of the Ministry of Agriculture.
On the basis of the approved project, a long-term lease of around 200 hectares of agricultural land in the municipality of Indjija was also granted to the company Aliquantum, which, according to reports from the Voice portal at the time, had its headquarters at the same address as the premises of the People's Peasant Party. Marijana Risticevic. According to the data of the official register at the time, that company did not have any employees.
Šabić states that the lex specialis could be formally used in this matter as well.
"It could be like that, either for real contracts, or for those that, as in the case you mention - and in some other cases - serve as 'huge successes' for inappropriately loud propaganda, and in the end remain without any effects, at least those useful for our country," says Šabić.
The Constitutional Court would have to prevent irreparable damage
However, he notes that, as he has already said publicly: the Constitutional Court would - if the circumstances were at all normal - have to prevent this possibility.
"According to Article 56 of the Law on the Constitutional Court, the Constitutional Court can, during the proceedings, until the final decision is made, suspend the execution of an individual act or an action undertaken on the basis of a general act whose constitutionality or legality is being evaluated, if their execution could lead to irreparable harmful consequences. And it would have to do this on the occasion of the already submitted proposals for the evaluation of the constitutionality of this multiple unconstitutional law," emphasizes Šabić.
However, he notes that the "unfortunately recognizable personnel policy" in the current selection of new judges does not make it likely that the Constitutional Court will do so.
"Even if the Constitutional Court were to do that, it is not excluded that the arrogant government would react to it as it does in relation to the part of the judiciary whose actions it does not like, labeling the decision as 'blockade' and 'criminal'. That is why the best and perhaps the only defense against further abuse of the lex specialis is the resistance of the public, citizens," concludes Šabić.
Demolition of the General Staff as the purpose of the lex specialis
What is the obvious intention of the lex specialis about the General Staff can already be seen in Article 3 of that law, in which it is stated that the buildings are threatened with collapse, and a special curiosity is that the condition in which those buildings are located is decisively stated in the law, which actually uses that condition as an irrefutable argument for the demolition of the General Staff.
This is especially "eye-popping" because other laws already allow for a building, if it poses a danger to people's lives, to be demolished at the request of the investor. The demolition of such a building can also be ordered by the building inspector.
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