Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006

Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 20063. Organization of Government3. 1. National AssemblyStatus of DeputiesArticle 102The term of office of the deputy shall begin on the day of confirmation of terms of officein the National Assembly and last four years, that is until the expiry of terms of officeof deputies of that session of the National Assembly.Under the terms stipulated by the Law, a deputy shall be free to irrevocably put his/herterm of office at disposal to the political party upon which proposal he or she has beenelected a deputy.Deputy may not be a deputy in the Assembly of the autonomous province, nor anofficial in bodies of executive government and judiciary, nor may he or she perform otherfunctions, affairs and duties, which represent a conflict of interest, according to the Law.Election, expiry of the term of office and status of deputies shall be stipulated by theLaw.The new Constitution of Serbia states that the parliamentary representativeis free to put his term of office irrevocably in the hands of the politicalparty on whose suggestion he had been elected as a representative. Such aformulation avoids to determine clearly who the term of the representativebelongs to, i.e. whether it is free or connected to the party. Through analysis,a conclusion can be made that this depends on the wishes of both theparty, and the representative himself. It is not difficult to assume that sucha regulation had been accepted in order to legalize the custom by which therepresentatives, in order to be elected, give their parties blank resignations.The parties can activate those resignations at any given moment. In thisway, a system in which the term of office is practically the property of theparty, and not the representative himself is established.This is in direct opposition with the attitude of OSCE, which hasrecommended that the representatives should be able to handle their termsof office themselves 119 . The recommendation of OSCE directly leans on119 See the final report of OSCE on the elections in Serbia 2003, on the website: http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2004/02/2177_sr.pdf,visited on November 23 rd , 200635