ОСОБЕНОСТИ КОНТРОЛЕ УСТАВНОСТИ ЗАКОНА У РЕПУБЛИЦИ СРБИЈИ
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CONTROL OF CONSTITUTIONALITY IN THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA

Summary/Abstract: As compared to the solutions contained in the Constitution of 1990, the new Constitution of the Republic of Serbia of 2006 has brought about significant changes in terms of the role and the position of the Constitutional . Court, defined as "an independent and sovereign state body of authority which protects the constitutionality and legality human and minority rights and freedoms" and whose decisions are "final, enforceable and binding for all". For that purpose, the framer of the constitution introduced significant changes in respect of the authorities of the Constitutional Court, thus creating the basic presumptions for the Court to become the "guardian of the Constitution" in the given social reality. The primary role of the Constitutional Court is still the control of the legislative authority (and other exponents of normative activities), thus securing the constitutionality in the formal and material sense and "preventing the legislative bodies to abuse and exceed their authorities". In comparison to other courts, this function is commonly understood as diferentia specifica of the constitutional, judiciary; therefore, it is often said that 4 the constitutional court does not adjudicate cases regarding legal and natural persons" but "reviews laws violating the constitution".As the Constitutional Court is obliged to preserve and protect" the Constitution-imposed relations among legal acts in the legal system of the Republic of Serbia, which are articulated as the principles of constitutionality (and legality), the Court does it by exercising immediate normative control; due to the complexity of relations established in the legal order, the Court has different forms and proceedings for resolving the so-called "abstract constitutional disputes".Depending on the time when the review of the constitutionality of laws is performed, under the Constitution the control may be posterior or repressive - control a posteriori, and prior or preventive - control a priori. The posterior control is performed after the act (or some other general enactment) has entered into force, and is today the predominant form of control in most countries.On the other hand, the prior control is performed before the act adopted in parliament becomes legally perfect, i.e. before it is pronounced, officially published and entered into force, which is today the practice of just a few countries. Thus, the contemporary constitutional system of Serbia has a mixed system of judicial control of the constitutionality of laws, where both forms of | control are legally possible at the same time depending on the kind of acts. The evaluation of the constitutionality of laws before they are actually pronounced and "entered into force" is a new authority of the Constitutional Court (introduced on the model of the legal solution contained in the French constitutional system) but it is characterized by a number of specific features which raise a number of questions.The new Constitution has instituted another form of normative control by the Constitutional Court, including the evaluation of the compliance of laws with the generally accepted rules of international law and ratified international agreements. This responsibility/authority of the Constitutional Court to decide on compliance of the ratified international agreements with the Constitution came from the fact that the ratified international agreements are a constituent part of the legal order, that they are directly implemented, and that these agreements "must be in compliance with the Constitution", i.e. they "must not be in conflict with the Constitution". However, there is a number of ensuing dilemmas related to this new authority of the Constitutional Court: does the control include the control a posteriori which may be directly inferred for the linguistic context of the Constitutional provisions, or does it also imply the control a priori; does this control refer only to the control of laws on the confirmation of international agreements, which is difficult to infer from the linguistic context of the given constitutional norm.

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