CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY FOR YUGOSLAVIA: BETWEEN REFORM AND REVOLUTION
CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY FOR YUGOSLAVIA: BETWEEN REFORM AND REVOLUTION

Author(s): Nenad Dimitrijević
Subject(s): History, Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Constitutional Law
Published by: CEDET Centar za demokratsku tranziciju
Keywords: Constitutionalism; theory of circumstances; rule by law; privatized state; constitutional continuity; constitution-making procedure; constitutional content
Summary/Abstract: This paper explores the possibilities for the establishment of constitutional democracy in Serbia and Yugoslavia. The point of departure is marked by today’s contextual specificities of Serbia and Yugoslavia (the heritage of socialism and nationalism, disputed statehood). The general hypothesis is that these specificities ought to be understood not merely as the most serious obstacles to constitutional democracy, but rather as the most important incentives for its affirmation. Upon exploring the “constitutional question” in socialism and in Milošević’s regime, the contemporary constitutional and political condition is analyzed, with the principal emphasis on the issues of statehood and of the ambiguities of the strategy of constitutional continuity. The closing sections of the paper offer a set of policy recommendations for possible directions and strategies for the establishment of constitutional democracy: special attention is devoted to the questions of constitution-making procedure and of constitutional content.

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