ZAGREB, June 14, 2018 – The president of the Democratic Alliance of Vojvodina Croats (DSHV) Tomislav Žigmanov said on Thursday that he would not support a bill on national councils that is being debated in Serbia’s parliament because minority representative bodies would lose their autonomy considering that the bill introduces state control over them.
“The process of preparing the bill itself was non-transparent and non-inclusive. The objective of the bill remains unclear too – are national councils supposed to be autonomous or an extended arm of state administration. The end result will be an atypical institution that is deprived of its self-government powers while on the other hand it is not clear in what way it is supposed to be part of the system that should be working to protect minority rights,” Žigmanov told Croatian media in Vojvodina.
Žigmanov said the bill’s particular deficiency lies in the “suspension of the right of national minority political representatives to be the key people in their own community bodies, which we consider to be absurd.”
“Imagine a situation where a political representative of the Serb community in Croatia – the leader of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) Milorad Pupovac, cannot by law also be the president of the Serb National Council. I am afraid that this type of restriction is contrary to basic constitutional principles. It is every citizen’s right to be elected and to elect,” said Žigmanov, who is a member of the Serbian parliament.
The clearest form of exclusion of minority leaders from the decision-making process, he added, can be seen in them not being able to participate in allocating funds for national minorities. “Such nonsense can’t be seen in democratically developed systems that have developed minority policies,” he said.
“That body will eventually be reduced to an administrative unit that will have to submit a financial report every three months. Not one state body has to do that nor any public institution nor agency. It will be under the constant control of the relevant ministry because any decision national councils make will have to be consented to by the ministry, which can also reject it,” he said.
The bill amending legislation on national councils of ethnic minorities is currently being debated in Serbia’s parliament.
Leaders of the Croat community in April pointed out the negative impact of the bill. The president of the Croat National Council (HNV) Slaven Bačić said then that, “instead of strengthening the institutional status of national councils – bodies representing national minorities, the bill will weaken them.”
He added that the HNV would continue to oppose the bill because it would restrict the acquired minority rights and restrict minorities’ right to self-government.
