ЛОКАЛНИ РЕФЕРЕНДУМ У КОМПАРАТИВНОЈ ПЕРСПЕКТИВИ
LOCAL REFERENDUM IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Summary/Abstract: A referendum is a form of direct democracy and exercise of citizens’ sovereignty that can be organized at different levels of government. In territorial units, such as municipalities or regions, one speaks of a - local referendum. The subject of this study is its theoretical and practical aspects in comparative legal systems, in reference to the territory of the former Yugoslavia. In contrast to most communist countries, the local referendum was applied during the period of Yugoslav socialist ‘self-management’, especially in decisions on local “selfparticipation” (self-taxation). Today, however, as in most European countries, this practice is very rare. The local referendum is badly portrayed as a corrective to representative democracy. Criticism of the local referendum stems from attitudes toward decentralization and the belief that it poses a threat to majority-understood democracy, because it is prone to abuse. In legal systems, it can be constitutionalized, regulated by a special law, or not regulated by regulations. Variations of solutions in comparative law are also observed in the types of local referendum, the procedure for determining the referendum question, the conditions for its validity, the bindingness of the decision, etc.

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