Project: Monitoring Serbia’s OSCE Chairmanship16Dec2015
Civil Gatherings in Legal Vacuum
There has been a legal vacuum in Serbia since October 9 in the field of regulations on public gatherings, as in April the Constitutional Court found the provisions of the current Law on Public Gathering of Citizens – unconstitutional, State Secretary in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) Jana Ljubicic said on Tuesday, news agency Fonet reports.
Despite the legal vacuum, 15,600 public gatherings were held between 10 October and 30 November, Ljubicic said at a joint session of parliamentary boards for defense and internal affairs and human and rights of minorities and gender equality.
MUP representative Natasa Milidragovic warned about a liability to pass a law as soon as possible, after it has been publically debated, as there should not be any time to wait since the issue in question is a legal vacuum.
Provisions of the draft law, she added, have been simplified from the original text, and a gathering is defined as any group of over 20 people who wish to express social, political and other opinions.
According to Milidragovic, the law put political gatherings and concerts of some music stars in the same category, and provisions about places of gatherings were issues of debates between MUP and local self-governments.
Local self-governments insisted that places of gathering should be limited to certain locations, while MUP did not believe that it should be limited, she explained.
CENTER is a member of the CSOs Coalition for the Monitoring of Serbia's implementation of the OSCE human dimension commitments warned that, although the freedom of assembly is a declared priority area, Serbia has not passed requested improvements of the key law.