Photo: Sava Radovanović/TanjugOn Sunday, January 16, a referendum will be held on changes to the Constitution in the area of the judiciary. Representatives of the opinions "go out and vote NO", "go out and vote YES" and "don't vote at all" for "Vreme" explain their views and explain what is actually being voted on
The first referendum under the new Law on Referendum and People's Initiative was announced for Sunday, January 16. According to the new law, a simple majority of the number of people who went to vote is required for the success of the referendum. If there are 10 and 6 yes votes, the referendum has succeeded and the Constitution is changed as the supreme legal act that concerns everyone.
The referendum question reads: "Are you in favor of confirming the Act on the Amendment of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia?" Behind this wording is hidden a new way of electing judges and prosecutors, which is being moved to legal advice.
The referendum on amendments to the Constitution was announced immediately after the adoption of the new Referendum Law, so quickly that it almost couldn't have been done any faster. Critics said that this speed was "against international standards", and that there was no public debate, so that citizens had no idea what they should be voting on.
The proposed changes to the Constitution refer to the part on the judiciary. The Minister of Justice, Maja Popović, explained during the parliamentary discussion on the calling of the referendum that "the goal of changing the Constitution is to increase the legal security of citizens", and that "the changes to the Constitution are foreseen as an activity of the action plan for negotiation chapter 23" in the accession negotiations with the European Union.
In the Assembly, there was no one to contradict since there is no opposition in it
EU officials in Serbia, as well as, for example, the German ambassador, invited citizens to go to the referendum and circle YES.
However, many domestic experts have a different opinion. Judge Miodag Majić assessed that this is not the moment to change the Constitution, "because the atmosphere in society and the question of legitimacy in the Parliament are not conditions in which it is changed".
And the professor of the Faculty of Law, Miodrag Jovanović, said that the current constitutional arrangements are not so bad that they would produce the situation we have, but that the problem is that "the other branches of government are not separated as the Constitution provides."
In the author's text for "Vreme", member of the Small Council of the movement Ne davimo Beograd Biljana Đorđević says that "we should go to the referendum and vote NO".
She believes that by moving the election of judges and prosecutors from the Assembly to the High Council of the Judiciary and the High Council of the Prosecution, which is foreseen by the amendments to change the Constitution that citizens will vote on in the referendum on January 16, the political discipline of the judiciary would only continue using different methods.
On the other hand, lawyer Milan Antonijević is of the opinion that "we should go to the referendum and vote YES".
Because, writes Antonijević for "Vreme", it is this, almost one-party parliament, that not only needs to "push through" changes to the Constitution in accordance with the EU's expectations, but is also perhaps the only one that can actually do it, because it requires a two-thirds majority in Assembly. He believes that now a unique political momentum has been created to move things from the deadlock. Any delay, Antonijević writes, would mean "a disaster for EU integration and wasting many more years of our lives."
On the third side, the president of the Freedom and Justice Party, Dragan Đilas, is of the opinion that you should not participate in the referendum at all. He explained that a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly is required to change the Constitution, and that it is one-party, so that the decision was actually made at the party assembly of the Serbian Progressive Party and is therefore illegitimate.
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