Venice Commission unanimously in support of the Constitutional Amendments

The Venice Commission “gave the green light” for the last draft of the Amendments to the Serbian Constitution. It did so this week through a published notification of its Secretariat, which was not well received by some judges, prosecutors and the civil society sector who argue that the Venice Commission’s opinion had not gone through the Commission’s own proper procedure for which reason they would seek clarification from the Commission and the Council of Europe.

Daily newspapers Novosti contacted the Venice Commission Headquarters requesting clarification of the entire situation, i.e. whether the notification was an expression of the Commission’s official position and whether that position had been adopted through the proper procedure. “The notification does indeed represent the Commission’s position. It was first shared with the rapporteurs and then verbally communicated to the Commission members in a session, none of whom had any objections. In fact, the Commission filed the notification as a record which was authorised prior to being published” – this was the response written on behalf of the President of the Venice Commission Gianni Buquicchio which was sent by the Venice Commission Public Relations Officer Natalia Mikhelova who confirmed that the notification had not been formally adopted for two reasons.

"Firstly, the proposed text of the Amendments was not received until only a few days before the session, leaving no time for the complete adoption procedure. Secondly, the text did not raise or include new matters. Rather, the objective was to consolidate the initial text with the Venice Commission’s opinion issued in June. Therefore, we found it sufficient to compare the two texts with the June opinion and not issue a new opinion. The Venice Commission has followed this same procedure in previous cases, e.g. the amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine”, Tatiana Mikelova wrote.

THE OFFICIAL INITIATIVE AWAITED

Following the Venice Commission’s latest opinion, the Government will start the constitutional amendments initiative before the National Assembly. Only once it is adopted by a two-thirds majority, the proposed text of the Amendments will be submitted to the Board for Legislative and Constitutional Matters which will act as the final initiator of the Amendments.