Draft Law On Local Government Property
Considering that the entire property used by local governments is in the possession of the Republic of Serbia, local governments are facing numerous problems that aggravate the functioning and performing regular activities. PALGO Center defined Draft Law on Local Government Property in order to help reforming inadequate structure regarding the ownership rights and relations that made the system of local government inefficient and unproductive.
This project particularly analyzed the issue of coordinating the process of devolution and denationalization, in other words, process of giving back the property to local governments and giving back the nationalized property to the previous owners, furthermore the issue of natural resources management and management of the estate in public use, the status of the building land as well as ownership titles, etc.
Besides the work on defining the Draft Law, this project was oriented to defining the constitutional grounds for suggested solutions refusing all doubts that the existing constitutional framework is inadequate for enacting such law. The Draft was received with almost plebiscitary support from competent representatives of local governments, first at the meeting in Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, then at several seminars (in Nis, Subotica, Kragujevac, Belgrade) with representatives of 120 local governments in Serbia.
The Draft Law on Local Government Property was sent to Prime Minister on February 14, 2005 and afterwards to the National Assembly with the associated elaboration and detailed comments. The Draft was introduced to the members of the Parliament on April 15, 2005. Ministry of Finance has accepted it as its own Draft and submitted it to other ministries for the opinion. The Draft is expected to be accepted by the Government and submitted to the Parliament for adoption.
In November 2005, Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities and PALGO Center jointly offered to the public a brochure containing the Draft Law, a digest of the Study on economic consequences of taking the assets of towns and municipalities and making them State property, a Justification for passing the law and constitutional grounds for restoring the ownership rights of local government. The brochure was made available to all local self-government officials. It also contains the Initiative paper for passing this Law together with the list of all the municipal presidents and Mayors who have already signed this Initiative. A Justification of the Law in English language is available at the very end of the brochure.
Download the brochure Draft Law on Local Government Property in PDF version (Additional pages)
This project was supported by SLGRP conducted by DAI (funded by USAID), and Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative of the Institute for an Open Society (OSI / LGI)
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