Bazični principi ustavne države - primer Ustava Srbije
The Basic Principle Of The Constitutional State - The Constitution of Serbia

Summary/Abstract: The principle of popular sovereignty is defined in the Basic Principles of the Serbian Constitution, which provides two basic types of popular sovereignty: the direct exercise of power (in a referendum or a popular initiative) and the free election of representative bodies. The Constitution proscribes that the state bodies of authority, political parties and individuals shall neither usurp popular sovereignty nor establish government in contradiction with the free will of the people expressed in free democratic elections. The citizens' sovereignty and the free will (by which they express their sovereignty) are protected as the basic values of the constitutional system. The sovereignty of the state is first defined in the Preamble of the Serbian Constitution, in reference to the status of the Province of Kosovo and Metohija, where the Republic of Serbia is defined as a national state. However, this concept is differently defined in the normative part of the Constitution. The Basic Principles of the Constitution also contain legal provisions on the state sovereignty (including the state territory, state symbols, protection of citizens, the rights and the status of foreign nationals, etc). Being formal attributes of state sovereignty, state symbols are prescribed in the Basic Principles of the Serbian Constitution. The principle of legal sovereignty and the rule of law are explicitly defined in the context of a unified legal order. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land which all other legal acts and general regulations have to comply with. There is no explicit provision that either the Constitution or the statutory legislation shall be binding, i.e. that everyone shall be obliged to abide by them, but there are explicit legal provisions on the duty of the state administration, the courts, the judiciary and the public prosecutors to abide by the Constitution and the statutory law. In the constitutional provisions, it is also possible to identify certain differences in terms of the rules defining the framework and the limitations of activities of certain bodies of authority. The Constitution defines the rule of law principle as one of the vital and distinctive features of the legal state and the underlying principles it rests upon. The Republic of Serbia rests on the rule of law and social justice, on the principles of civic democracy, human rights and freedoms, and recognition of common European values. The legal content of the rule of law principle includes a hierarchy of legal rules, a unified legal order, a mandatory publication of legal rules, a prohibition of the reverse effect of legal acts and other regulations (except in cases permitted by the Constitution), judicial control of the legality of the administration activities. In a broader sense, the rule of law principle includes a functional, organizational and personal separation of powers (both horizontal and vertical).

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