E-Civic Engagement (RS0041)

COMMITMENT 14: Creating legal basis and implementing an electronic system for e-civic
engagement
Q2 2018 - Q2 2020
Lead implementing agency Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government
Office for Information Technologies and e-Government
Description of Commitment
Problem addressed by the
commitment
The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia guarantees citizens the
right to propose laws. On the other hand, the Law on Referendum
and Civic Initiatives guarantees citizens the right to propose
amendments to the Constitution, laws, other regulations and
general acts within the purview of the National Assembly and the
assemblies of autonomous provinces, municipalities or cities, to
call for referendum on specific issues and submit other petitions in
accordance with the Constitution, laws and statutes. However,
citizens have no means of swift, ready and simple participation in
these processes. The currently applicable law from 1994 imposes
very strict conditions for citizens’ participation in these processes.
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Citizens therefore rarely opt to exercise their rights by submitting
civic initiatives or supporting certain civic initiatives.
Main objective As the Law on Referendum and Civic Initiatives is currently being
amended, one step further should be made and all existing forms
of civic engagement should be enabled electronically. Developed
online models for civic participation should be copied and citizens
should be allowed to submit initiatives and/or petitions
themselves, using a single platform.
How will this commitment
contribute to problem solving?
According to a survey conducted by the organisation CRTA, very
few citizens believe their personal engagement can change
anything in their society and their environment. On the other hand,
the same survey reported a mild increase in the share of citizens
who stated a desire and willingness to actively influence decisionmaking processes (from 25%, in 2014 this share increased to 34%
in 2016). Accordingly, it should be made possible for citizens to
participate in social processes in an easy, simple and efficient
manner.
A specific aspect of this commitment is that it would allow
citizens to submit initiatives and/or petitions by themselves using
this mechanism, which would be forwarded to the competent
institutions for discussion and decision-making if they are
supported by sufficient online signatures.
The way in which this
commitment is relevant to
further advancing OGP values
Implementation of electronic forms of civic engagement would
improve citizens’ participation in the decision-making process.
The existing forms of civic engagement do not keep up with the
trends in terms of electronic participation and e-communications
and has been shown on several occasions to be too complicated
for broad civic participation.
Additional information The Action Plan on Implementation of the Public Administration
Reform Strategy 2018-2020 provides for the commissioning of a
comparative practice study and subsequent amendments to the
Law on Civic Initiatives and Referendum in order to improve
mechanisms for civic engagement.
Activity with a verifiable
deliverable and completion date
Start Date: End Date:
1. Drafting and enactment of a
new Law on Referendum and
Q2 2018 Q4 2019
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Civic Initiatives or amendment of
the existing one to improve
mechanisms for civic engagement
so that the existing forms of civic
engagement can be made
electronically.
2. Drafting of secondary
legislation and development of eapplication(s) which would
accurately enable electronic civic
engagement in accordancre with
the amended or new Law on
Referendum and Civic Initiatives.
Q4 2019 Q2 2020
Contact information
Name of a responsible person in the implementing agency Saša Mogić
Mihailo Jovanović
Title, Department Assistant Minister, Sector for
Local Self-Government System
Director
Email and phone number sasa.mogic@mduls.gov.rs
mihailo.jovanovic@mduls.gov.rs
Other actors
involved
Administration
Civil sector organisations, private sector, SDC, GIZ, CRTA
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working groups

14. E-civic engagement

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

Title: Creating legal basis and implementing an electronic system for e-civic engagement

As the Law on Referendum and Civic Initiatives is currently being amended, one step further should be made and all existing forms of civic engagement should be enabled electronically. Developed online models for civic participation should be copied and citizens should be allowed to submit initiatives and/or petitions themselves, using a single platform.

Start Date: Q2 2018

End Date: Q2 2020

For full commitment text, please refer to the National Action Plan at https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Serbia_Action-Plan_2018-2020_EN.pdf

Context and Objectives

The great majority of laws in the Republic of Serbia are initiated by the Government; 344 out of 354 laws in the current legislature were initiated by the Government; five laws were initiated by the National Bank of Serbia, as an independent institution, and the last five by the members of the ruling coalition in the Parliament. No legal acts were initiated by the citizens, although citizens are allowed to do so. ^[171]

Primarily, the idea of this commitment is to make the entire initiative/petition process easier so that more laws can be initiated by the citizens’ group and tabled for discussion in the National Assembly. It does not deal with the process for undertaking referendums. In terms of tackling the values of the OGP, this commitment is related to the civic participation (cooperation between the public administration bodies and CSOs) and technology and innovation (introducing electronic civic engagement concerning civic initiatives).

According to MPALSG statements, they plan to develop a policy study to map the best e-engagement practices around Europe, which will inform drafting of the law expected to be finalized by the end of 2019. Although the action plan envisions secondary legislation to accompany this law, the representatives of the Ministry are uncertain as to whether this will be the case. ^[172] Given the inconsistency of the existing law governing this area with the Constitution and the outdated solutions it offers, the Ministry plans to adopt a completely new law.

Finally, after the law is drafted, the electronic application for undertaking civic initiatives will be developed. Although the text of this commitment leaves the possibility for the new law to envisage solutions for e-participation in the case of petitions, MPALSG representatives emphasize that it would not be possible because the Serbian Constitution does not allow for regulating petitions by a law. Besides, there were dilemmas about who will be collecting and processing petitions and how the identity of signatories will be determined. ^[173] Also, it is still not clear whether the electronic application will be connected to the e-Government portal or to the National Open Data Portal.

Next steps

Civil society representatives from the OGP Working Group also see several critical obstacles in undertaking the process of civic initiative beyond the scope of this commitment. Thus, there is a space for recommending measures for improving commitment and particularly activities in the future. The IRM researchers agree with CSO representatives’ following suggestions for improvements:

• To the MPALSG, within the new Law on Referendum and Civic Initiatives:
  • Revise and extend the deadline for collecting necessary support regarding the civic initiatives’ procedure from seven days to three months.
  • Define precise content of the demands within the civic initiative (defined problems, proposed options, type of policy document, or legal act);
  • Define the responsibilities of decision-makers, in other words, to define the process and deadline for giving the response to the initiatives undertaken;
• To the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia:
  • Consider amending the Rule of Procedure in order to determine the timeline for having the civic initiative proposal in the parliamentary procedure;
• To the legislative bodies on the state (National Assembly), provincial (Assembly of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina), and local level (city/municipal assemblies):
  • Create an archive of all submitted, planned, and civic initiatives on procedure available on websites.

14. E-civic engagement

Completion: Limited:

The law to enable e-civic engagement has not been amended. Following a public debate on the draft law in October 2019, [78] the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government prepared the draft and sent it to the Government for approval. It included provisions on introducing advisory and obligatory referendum, referendum campaign, introducing possibility to launch an online civic initiative (to be further regulated through a specific bylaw) [79]. These features should create more space for citizens’ inclusion in the decision-making procedures both online and in the traditional way. Due to the parliamentary elections and the formation of the new government in 2020, the draft will again go through the inter-institutional consultative process and be re-sent to the government for approval. [80] The delays in law adoption halted the development of the bylaw and the launching of the online portal for electronic civic engagement.