THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGES IN SERBIAN SYSTEM OF TERRITORIAL DECENTRALIZATION
THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGES IN SERBIAN SYSTEM OF TERRITORIAL DECENTRALIZATION

Summary/Abstract: In this paper the author has studied the structure of articles that regulate territorial decentralization in the Constitution of Serbia 2006, and in three acts adopted in late 2007 (the Law on Territorial Organization, the Law on Local Government and the Law on Local Elections) in order to determine the meaning, characteristics of changes and possibilities for a further development of the Serbian system of territorial decentralization. After conducting a functional analysis of the system of territorial decentralization, he concluded that organization of decentralized units abandons the principle of division of powers, and then tried to evaluate the most important changes in relation to the previous system of decentralization, which relate to: restoring local property rights; modalities and criteria for the establishment of new provinces, cities and municipalities; rights of foreign nationals in the implementation of local self-government; authorization for creating public-private partnerships, new responsibilities in the hands of territorial decentralization units (including the right of a city to form a communal police); the position of the mayor and other local government bodies in the system of powers united in the hands of the local assembly; technical solutions which facilitate and accelerate the work of bodies of decentralized units; changes in the way of nomination and increasing the electoral threshold; controversies about the ways to end the councilor's mandate ("blank resignation") etc.

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