ПОИМАЊЕ СЕКУЛАРНОСТИ У СРБИЈИ – РЕФЛЕКСИЈЕ СА ЈАВНЕ РАСПРАВЕ У УСТАВНОМ СУДУ
UNDERSTANDING SECULARITY IN SERBIA – REFLECTIONS ON PUBLIC HEARING IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

Summary/Abstract: The author offers his views presented at the public hearing before the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Serbia on constitutionality of certain norms of the Act on Churches and Religious Communities of 2006. Firstly, on the basis of comparative, theoretical and normative analysis, he argues against the claim that any differentiation between traditional and other churches and religious communities is discriminatory and unconstitutional. He finds that the Serbian criterion of classification has been derived from the legal status that particular churches and religious communities had acquired before the World War Two, which they were therafter deprived of by the communist regime. He asserts that the criterion is set forth clearly, firmly and appropriately, with reasonable justification, as well as that it is more objective than, for example, the number of followers or long presence, which are usually applied in other legal systems for the purpose of defining traditional or some other category of religious institutions with special status. The motive and goal of its application is a specific kind of restoration of once attained legal status, in the manner similar to the restitution of nationalized property.

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