The Constitution of Serbia to be changed: Referendum on January 16

Photo: Nikola Tomic

President of the National Assembly of Serbia Ivica Dacic said today that a referendum on changing the Serbian Constitution in the field of justice should be held on January 16.

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Dacic said that amendments should be adopted by then, adding that the text should be presented during the parliamentary session on November 30.

"It was supposed to happen on November 29, but I wanted to avoid that date," Dacic told TV Pink (Nov. 29 was the national holiday of former Yugoslavia).

Dacic pointed out to something regarding the referendum, stating that in order to the change the Constitution, that is, for the success of a referendum, it is no longer required for 50 percent of registered voters to turn out, which was stipulated in 2006.

As announced after the session of the Government held on November 9, the new law will allow citizens to efficiently exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to participate in governance through people's initiatives and referendums.

The new law eliminates the shortcomings found in a number of solutions from the current law, due to which citizens rarely used the institute of referendum and people's initiatives in practice, the government's Office for Cooperation with the Media announced.

Due to the fact that the current law was passed in 1994, the new bill contains numerous instances of alignments with the Constitution, primarily in terms of abolishing the mandatory threshold for the required number of voters as a condition for the success of a referendum, as well as regulating all types of referendums provided by the Constitution.

(Telegraf.rs)