Bureau of Social Research: Vucic Delivered Public Address as If He Were Prime Minister, Violating Constitution

Aleksandar Vucic (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

The BIRODI Bureau of Social Research said in a press release on Jan. 14 that a Jan. 13 public address by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Pink TV had been in contravention of the constitutional role of the president by entering into subjects that are under the authority of the Serbian government.

"The Serbian Constitution distinguishes clearly between the jurisdiction of the president and the authority of the government. Instead of acting within the constitutional authority of the president of the state, in a large portion of his address, Vucic appropriated subjects in the purview of the prime minister and cabinet members -- economic, energy and operational policy, negotiations and executive authority," the statement read.

BIRODI called on members of the Serbian parliament to mount proceedings to penalize the president's unconstitutional conduct, and on media outlets to stop the practice of normalizing the conflation of constitutional functions and maintain professional standards. "Parsing the transcript looking only at the parts that clearly fall under the constitutional authority of the president of the state or the prime minister shows that President Vucic spoke as the president of the Republic 42.9 percent of the time, while he spoke as if he were prime minister or a member of the cabinet 57.1 percent of the time," BIRODI said.

The statement went on to say that the analysis indicated the systematic conflation of functions and a constitutionally problematic practice in which the institution of the president is used as a "channel" for presenting and pursuing executive policy.