The Reason that Changes Everything: Judicial Review of Brussels Agreement under the Political Question Doctrine Cover Image

A jedan razlog menja sve: kontrola ustavnosti Briselskog sporazuma u svetlu doktrine političkog pitanja
The Reason that Changes Everything: Judicial Review of Brussels Agreement under the Political Question Doctrine

Author(s): Violeta Beširević
Subject(s): Constitutional Law, International Law, Civil Society, International relations/trade, Politics and law, Geopolitics
Published by: Centar za unapređivanje pravnih studija
Keywords: The Brussels Agreement; the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia; judicial review; political question doctrine; separation of powers;

Summary/Abstract: On December 10th, 2014 the Constitutional Court of Serbia rendered a decision declaring itself incompetent to review so-called „Brussels Agreement“, governing the normalization of relations between the Government of the Republic of Serbia and Interim Institutions of Local Self-Government in Priština. The Constitutional Court based its decision on procedural grounds, finding that neither Brussels Agreement nor internal acts adopted by the Serbian Government and National Assembly with regard to that Agreement, could be subjected to judicial review in accordance with Article 167 of the Serbian Constitution. The author of this article agrees with the Court decision, but not with its reasoning leading to a denial of jurisdiction. The article offers alternative road to a declaration of incompetence, which the Court could have reached following the separation of powers principle and the political question doctrine. Starting from the comparative constitutional jurisprudence, the contents and aims of the Brussels Agreement, as well as political context in which it was reached, the author of this article has shown the following: (a) the Brussels Agreement was not reached in order to allow the refunctioning of the state power on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, but to protect the Serbian people living at KiM and general state interests to the extent possible in the given political situation, until the re-establishment of full sovereignty; (b) the Constitutional Court could not establish its jurisdiction ratione materiae and decide whether the protective mechanisms, envisaged in the Agreement, that is – the establishment of a Community/ Association of municipalities in which Serbs represented a majority of the population, as well as organization of judicial power and police units, could have protected Serbs and general state interests in Kosovo and Metohija, because this was a political question which was unjusticiable and could not be resolved by legal standards.

  • Issue Year: 2016
  • Issue No: 1-2
  • Page Range: 127-151
  • Page Count: 25
  • Language: Serbian