If anyone has forgotten, there was a parliamentary plenum before the student plenum. It is now practically abolished. If the institutions would start doing their job - not only the court but also REM, Public Service and RIK - maybe one day the assembly could have 250 deputies elected by citizens in fair and honest elections and who would know how to explain what they voted for. But until that happens, we have to work with what we have.
Since November 2024, journalists have not received an invitation to report from the parliamentary session. That's why many were surprised by the scheduling of Ana Brnabić's extraordinary press conference on Sunday morning, February 23, 2025. What news is it that it can't wait until Monday or that Brnabić doesn't announce it on Pink?
In the end, it was another pseudo-event. Brnabić neither scheduled a session nor did any law reach the procedure, and she did not resign nor did anything that "must be done on Sunday" happen. All she had to say was that all the universities agreed on the proposal of the Law on Higher Education: it will be discussed first by the Government and only then by the members of Parliament.
According to Brnabić, this fulfills the fourth request of the blocked students. So, just one of those that the regime has been claiming to have fulfilled for weeks, along with the previous three. Someone would have to explain to the President of the Assembly and other power holders that if something is said, it does not mean that it has been done. Especially when Ana Brnabić herself admitted that the state authorities are still working on fulfilling the first three requirements. So - they did not complete what the students required of them.
According to the proposal of that law, employees in higher education will have their salaries increased by 15,7 percent, school fees will be halved, but with the students paying them in full, and then the state will return the money from the budget to each of them by name. All this will be on the agenda of the first session of the regular session. When? "Most likely" on March 4.
Brnabić "probably" repeated this at least four times, but did not explain why she still does not know it, and who should know it if she does not know it. True, the beginning of the regular session is such that the sessions are scheduled according to the regular procedure - it does not have to be the first Tuesday in March, because no law is violated. Namely, the parliamentary rules of procedure are full of directives - "as a rule". As a rule, but not necessarily.
THEY USE EVERYTHING THAT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ACCORDING TO THE BUSINESS BOOK
Experience has shown many times that the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly are imprecise - those who wrote them in the old days either did not delve deep enough into the subject or, like any government, thought that they would always be the majority. In some parts - such as the resignation of the Prime Minister - Article 132 of the Constitution of Serbia was simply taken over. It says that the Prime Minister submits his resignation to the President of the National Assembly, and at the same time informs the President of the Republic and the public about it, and "The National Assembly confirms the resignation of the Prime Minister at the first following session." However, there is no indication anywhere in what period.
Miloš Vučević submitted his resignation from the position of prime minister orally on January 28, it arrived in written form in the Assembly on February 5, and Vučević then said that in the next ten days to two weeks, a decision will be made whether a new government will be formed or new elections will be held. The deadlines he set himself have passed, and there is not even a clear date for the session when the resignation will be announced.
Has the Constitution been violated? It's not. Now it has been announced that at the next session, laws will first be adopted, and only then will the resignation of the Government. Otherwise, the rules of procedure do not say on which of the items on the agenda the resignation should be noted.
And when that finally happens, the parliamentary majority can agree to put whoever they want at the head of the new government. Although in his performances he likes to point out that he is the one who nominates the candidate, the president sends a distorted image that he decides on this independently. That is simply not true. So, what is the actual position of Vucic?
The ruling coalition can agree on a candidate for the mandate or conclude that an expert government is better. Furthermore, all parliamentary parties can reach an agreement on the formation of a concentration government in which they would all enter. Finally, perhaps for a number of reasons, no one is able to secure the required majority, so the convocation concludes by majority vote that elections are necessary. Whatever comes out of this, the assembly is only obliged to inform the president and nothing more. If the Assembly really did what it is responsible for, Vučić's statement that "never while he lives" will not provide a transitional government would not have any weight.
WHAT ELSE CAN THE ASSEMBLY DO??
Otherwise, MPs can request a special session, a public hearing and the formation of a survey committee on the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad. The fact that after the crimes in "Ribnikar", Dubona and Mali Orašje, an inquiry committee was formed and its work was immediately stopped should not prevent the deputies from looking for it, regardless of whether the majority allowed it or not.
The press conference at which the majority offered 100 signatures of deputies and asked for 67 more from the opposition to launch an advisory referendum with the question "Are you in favor of starting the procedure for removing the president?" has already been forgotten.
The explanations of the professor of constitutional law that such a referendum is not legal were in vain. On the contrary, Ana Brnabić claimed that the opposition, by rejecting such a declaration by the citizens of Serbia, wants to destabilize the country.
What can the National Assembly do? For example - to initiate the procedure for the removal of the president of the state. Article 15 of the Law on the President of the Republic states that the removal of the president can be proposed to the assembly by at least one-third of the deputies if they believe that he has violated the constitution, and the removal procedure is initiated by a majority vote of all the deputies. The Constitutional Court is obliged to decide within 45 days from the day when the proceedings were initiated whether the President of the Republic violated the Constitution. If the Constitutional Court decides that the president has violated the constitution, the president of the republic is dismissed if two-thirds of the deputies vote for his dismissal. The fact that he does not have a majority should not prevent opposition MPs from demanding the removal of the president, if they already claim that he violates the constitution.
The opposition can also hold daily press conferences in the assembly hall and in this way inform the public about what is happening in the country and how, in the "rush" of the fight against corruption, it has spoken many times over the years about arrested officials and those who have not yet been arrested.
Finally, when the session is finally scheduled, the opposition can exercise its right to speak about the proposed laws, whether or not the students' demands have been met. And all with a live broadcast on the Second Program of RTS. They can try and disrupt the work, as they did twice. At that time, they did not prevent the adoption of laws without discussion, but they did expose the working method of the parliament.
The opposition once succeeded in interrupting the session with noise and forcing Minister Aleksandar Martinović to leave, because in the previous session he had insulted citizens who do not have children. And he can also not participate in the work of the assembly until the student demands are met, thus giving space to the ruling coalition to talk for hours about whatever they want in the way they want.
THE PRESIDENT CAN REQUEST PAYMENT FOR PERFORMANCE, FOR MYSELF
Meanwhile, in a parliamentary democracy, what is the president of the National Assembly doing in one of the biggest political crises?
She has not convened a parliamentary session since November, when she roared from the lectern like a fan in a stadium; then the president of Serbia especially praised her because she conveyed everything as he suggested.
After that, Brnabić was mainly involved in party work and spreading, to put it mildly, an inappropriate way of communication in the media, even the regime media. For days, she targeted students to organize them from abroad, to lead protests based on the "Blockade Cookbook" from Croatia, they were manipulated and so on. Then that there are no strikes in schools or that a small number of teachers are on strike. Brnabić threatened that the students' parents would file constitutional lawsuits, the schools would pay, and that there would be no special elections... She also offered an unconstitutional referendum, argued with Tonina Pizzula, tweeted a lot, and still hasn't changed her profile picture of Aleksandar Vučić.
Before the outgoing minister, Slavica Đukić, Dejanović Brnabić announced that professors and teachers on strike will be paid according to their performance, as much as they worked. But how long did she work as the president of the National Assembly?
Since the constitutive session on February 8, 2024, Ana Brnabić has scheduled four sessions in two regular sessions, two extraordinary sessions and one special session. Thus, in a little more than a year, the Assembly sat for exactly 27 days - barely a little more than two days a month. And that brings us back to the beginning. In short, the National Assembly almost shut down. But that doesn't change the fact that whatever happens on the streets must eventually be confirmed in the assembly. Once upon a time.
