At yesterday’s session, the Government of Serbia adopted the draft Law on Referendum and Popular Initiative. This proposal abolishes the mandatory threshold of the required number of voters as a condition for a referendum to be valid.
The Government Office for Cooperation with the Media announced that the law would allow citizens to “effectively exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to participate in the exercise of power through a popular initiative and referendum”. The new law, it is reported, removes from the current legislation the shortcomings of some decisions, for which citizens have rarely made use of the referendum and citizens’ initiative institutions.
“Due to the fact that the currently valid law was passed in 1994, the new draft law has been harmonized with the Constitution, mainly in terms of abolishing the mandatory threshold of the number of voters as a condition for the success of the referendum, and regulates all types of referendums provided for in the Constitution,” the note states.
The solutions envisaged in the law are based on the recommendations of the Council of Europe’s ‘Revised Code of Good Practice on Referendums’ from October 2020.
(B92, 09.11.2021)
https://www.b92.net/info/vesti/index.php?yyyy=2021&mm=11&dd=09&nav_category=11&nav_id=2054075
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