The Constitutional Court considerations of Vojvodina's territorial autonomy

Abstract

While ruling on the constitutionality of the Law on establishing the competences of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Serbia has found 22 provisions in this law unconstitutional. That offered an opportunity of which the Constitutional Court has tried to take advantage in further considerations of the constitutional framework for territorial autonomy. However, the Court has failed since it has made some inadmissible and discreditable errors. There was no detailed constitutional analysis of the established territorial autonomy concept. Therefore, many questions remained open. One of these open questions is the legal nature of the statute of autonomous province, on which the Constitutional Court will decide when the constitutionality of the supreme legal act of Vojvodina will be brought to the attention of the Court. If the Constitutional Court had been in a good way while ruling on the constitutionality of the above-mentioned Law, it would not have had so many hesitations while ruling on the constitutionality of the Vojvodina Statute.

Odlučujući o ustavnosti Zakona o utvrđivanju nadležnosti AP Vojvodine, Ustavni sud je doneo odluku kojom je proglasio neustavnim 22 odredbe ovog zakona. Bila je to prilika za Ustavni sud, koju je pokušao da iskoristi, da dalje razvija i precizira ustavni okvir teritorijalne autonomije. Međutim, u ovom svom nastojanju, Ustavni sud nije bio previše uspešan, budući da je načinio i neke nedopustive greške, dakako nedostojne ovog organa. Izostala je fina ustavnopravna analiza ustanovljenog koncepta teritorijalne autonomije, tako da su mnoga pitanja i dalje ostala otvorena. Jedno od tih otvorenih pitanja je i pravna priroda statuta autonomne pokrajine, o kojoj Ustavni sud tek treba da se izjasni kada bude odlučivao o ustavnosti najvišeg pravnog akta Vojvodine. Da je kojim slučajem bio na dobrom putu kada je odlučivao o (ne)ustavnosti pomenutog zakona, sada svakako ne bi bilo potrebe za tolikim oklevanjem kada treba da odluči o (ne) ustavnosti Statuta AP Vojvodine.