On Thursday evening, Serbia received the first Law on Cultural Heritage. In translation, this means that until now we have not had a legally regulated and organized system by which the cultural heritage, which is one of the national identities, is protected and preserved.
Until now, cultural heritage has been regulated by the Law on Cultural Property from 1994, which dealt only with general issues of protection.
Presenting the new Law to the members of the Assembly, the Minister of Culture Maja Gojković stated that this is our first legal act defining cultural heritage, she pointed out that according to this Law, natural rarities and scientific, cultural and historical heritage are goods of general interest, that this applies to on tangible and intangible heritage, as well as that the rules of this Law also apply to the territory of AP Kosovo and Metohija.
It is worth recalling the process of arriving at the version of the Law that was passed two days ago, because it implies our political reality.
During May, the Ministry of Culture and Information organized public hearings on the Draft Law on Cultural Heritage.
In a letter to the Ministry of Culture dated May 31, the Serbian Orthodox Church assessed that the Draft Law is not in accordance with the Law on Churches and Religious Communities, and stated that the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church Porfirije pointed out certain "deficiencies" in the Draft that should be corrected because "they would not contribute joint two-decade intense struggle of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the state to preserve their cultural heritage in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija under their protection."
Patriarch Porfirije warned that AP Vojvodina is mentioned in six articles of the Draft, and AP Kosovo and Metohija is not mentioned in any of them, so, he assessed, it could be maliciously concluded that the southern Serbian province "is excluded from the system of state care, which is certainly not the case ."
Patriarch Porfirije specifically pointed to article 102 of the draft, which transformed the SPC from the owner to the user of cultural heritage on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, which would "deny it of basic ownership rights that are sacred in all democratically organized societies and states".
The Ministry of Culture immediately adopted the remarks of the Serbian Orthodox Church and Patriarch Porfiri, and drafted the Law on Cultural Heritage, and submitted it to the Serbian Parliament for consideration and adoption in mid-November.
However, as the Party of Freedom and Justice pointed out, it turned out that there is no Kosovo and Metohija in the Draft Law on Cultural Heritage. On that occasion, the People's Party requested that the controversial proposal be withdrawn from the parliamentary procedure.
The Ministry of Culture and Information withdrew the Bill, with the explanation of its Press Service that the text of the original Draft, the one created before the public debate, was sent to the Serbian Parliament by mistake, that this unintentional mistake has been corrected and that the procedure will be repeated. It was also noted that Article 4 of the Draft Law on Cultural Heritage covers the cultural heritage of the Republic of Serbia, including AP Kosovo and Metohija.
Article 4 was mentioned in the Law on Cultural Heritage, which was passed two days ago.
On the website of the Office for Kosovo of the Government of Serbia, it is written that in Kosovo there are about 1300 churches, monasteries and other objects of localities and spatial entities that constitute the cultural heritage of the Serbian people, that in the previous decade 150 objects of the Serbian Orthodox Church were destroyed, as well as that certain objects "heavily inns on the world's illegal antiquities market."
President Aleksandar Vučić, at the session of the Assembly of Serbia on Kosovo on May 27, 2019, stated that Serbia has no power in Kosovo, except in health and education, and that it is necessary to stop deceiving the public.
At the same time, the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of Serbia continuously takes care of the Serbian cultural heritage on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, including the Visoki Dečani, Gračanica, Peć Patriarchate and the Church of the Virgin of Ljeviška.
Now it remains to be seen whether the Law on Cultural Heritage will be valid and effective on the ground.
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