Parliamentary Sitting on Voter Roll, Lex Specialis on General Staff Complex Begins

National Assembly of Serbia (BETAPHOTO/Narodna skupstina Srbije/Pedja Vuckovic)

Members of the National Assembly of Serbia started on Nov. 4 a sitting whose agenda includes amendments to the Law on the Unified Electoral Roll and a lex specialis for the General Staff buildings in Belgrade, damaged in the 1999 NATO bombing.

The draft amendments to the Law on the Unified Voter Roll have ended up in parliamentary procedure 18 months after the recommendations made by the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the negotiations between the authorities on one side and NGOs and the opposition on the other. At one point, the opposition left the process and announced it would not support the proposed amendments.

The amendments were submitted by an MP of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, Ugljesa Mrdic, who went on a hunger strike outside the parliament building on Oct. 31, stating as the reason his dissatisfaction with the work of the prosecution in the investigation into the collapse of the Novi Sad railway station canopy.

The second out of the eight items on the agenda is a draft law on special procedures for implementing the project of revitalization and development of the location in Belgrade between the Kneza Milosa, Masarikova, Bircaninova and Resavska streets, i.e. a lex specialis for the General Staff complex designed by renowned architect Nikola Dobrovic. 

Experts and the opposition warn that the draft law is laying the groundwork for the demolition of the former General Staff complex, a protected cultural asset, so that U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner could build a hotel on that site, as well as that the General Staff complex itself is treated by the law as a ruin - without the characteristics of a monument.

The lawmakers - a group of 110 MPs - claim that the project is of general interest for the country's economic development and envisages the building of a memorial "which would ensure the preservation of cultural heritage."

The Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime is currently conducting an investigation into abuse of office and forged documents that originally removed the protection of the General Staff buildings, and among the suspects are the heads of the state and city institutes for the protection of cultural monuments, as well as the acting secretary at the Ministry of Culture.