Stevan Lilic On Radio Television Serbia And Division Of Power

by (The author is a Professor of Law at Belgrade University)

The uproar over the Contact Group peace plan for Bosnia and the beating of deputies in the Serbian Parliament drew attention away from a "Politika'' daily article recalling the four year chronology of Serbian opposition efforts to achieve the first premise of democratic pluralism: the freedom of public information.

The most important events in the political life of postCommunist Serbia to date have an important common denominator: freeing the Serbian Radio and Televison from the political monopoly of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and transforming it from a biased party disinformation producer into an objective national information network.

Immediately after last year's elections, Vesna Pesic, then a newly elected Civil Alliance MP, submitted proposed changes for the Radio and TV law to the assembly. That proposal, just like the proposal of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), served as the basis for a joint draft law on the RTS submitted by four opposition parties. That law topped the agenda of the Serbian assembly.

A lot could be said about the role and influence of the RTS on political life over the past four years but I'll focus on just one aspect of the problem which the Federal Government insists on with unusual ferocity.

Namely, the government, its spokesmen, SPS MPs have a superlegal argument to oppose all proposed changes in the existing RTS law. They persistently insist that the theory that transferring the authority to choose the RTS managing bodies (especially the managing board and general Director) from the government to parliament would be a violation of the principles of division of power since that would allegedly ``change the constitutionally defined character of the legislative and executive bodies.'' Some legal experts back up that claim when they say that ``it could easily happen that the opposition proposal, if adopted in parliament, could be toppled in the constitutional court'' because ``a constitution that includes a division of power envisages that parliament should deal with general issues not individual things... which is certainly unconstitutional.''

That argument points to at least two conclusions: a)the proposed changes are unconstitutional (since parliament, allegedly, cannot adopt individual acts) and b) the conditions that are allegedly in accord with the constitution are existing conditions (under which the government, i.e. the ruling party, has a program, personnel and political monopoly over the national radio and TV).

Those claims are not just incorrect they're also an unfounded public discrediting of the opposition parties' policies and the legitimate parliamentary activity of their deputies.

If there's any truth to the claim, every decision taken by parliament on the election of any official could be overturned in the constitutional court, including the appointment of the Prime Minister and Supreme and Constitutional Court judges.

The facts paint a different picture. If what the government claims were true then the election of the government would be just as unconstitutional as the appointment of the RTS Director.

The conclusion is obvious. The appointment of public officials by parliament is not unconstitutional nor does it upset the division of power, nor does it change the ``constitutionally defined character of the legislative and executive bodies.'' On the contrary, the government's claim is an (ill)intentioned fabrication and complete legal nonsense.