Before the Assembly of Serbia hastily adopted the Code of Conduct for MPs in December, the Open Parliament expressed its opinion on that, demanding that the proposal be withdrawn. Since the Code was nevertheless adopted as it stands, it left numerous questions as to how and whether it would be applied at all. We sought some answers from the President of the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM), Katarina Golubović, because if there were jurists from the opposition in the Assembly, they would have pointed out the problems of the adopted solution during the discussion.

OP: The Code was adopted hastily, there was no wider discussion, and it remained unclear when the working groups worked on changes to the original 2014 proposal. How do you assess the entire process and the fact that the Code was adopted precisely in this almost one-party Assembly?

KG: The news that the Code would be adopted by the end of 2020, as well as that the reports of independent institutions and the European Commission on Serbia’s progress would be discussed in plenum, was announced by the Speaker of the Assembly at the EU Convent plenary session held on December 17th. The plans were easily fulfilled, given that there are only seven opposition MPs in the Assembly. Thus, we certainly got three positive statements on our way to the EU, which is also mentioned in the introductory part of the Code. The second question is whether the citizens are getting a new, more decent, Assembly. Not really, if the Open Parliament needs to invite a jurist outside the parliament to discuss it. The basic value of the Assembly is democracy in pluralism. If we do not have basic, fundamental values, any additional evaluations and assessments are wrong. 

Here is the proof. If there were enough opposition jurists in the parliament, they would have probably said that if the Code was adopted to prevent violence, it did not have to be adopted at all, because violence is prohibited by the Rules of Procedure in article 107. In fact, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, the Speaker and the competent committee impose more diverse and much harsher penalties. So, the lie that a “decent assembly” requires a Code is repeated by those who imposed fines exclusively on opposition MPs, while they were in the parliamentary benches. 

In addition, nowadays in the Assembly, MPs are not being attacked, but rather members of the “extra-parliamentary opposition”, censorious citizens, disobedient representatives of institutions... However, the Rules of Procedure prohibit that, too, only the Speaker of the Assembly does not apply it, as it would have to be applied against MPs of the ruling party. 

OP: Which members of the Code are in your opinion the “weakest link” that you find inapplicable?

KG: The Code is a set of values. It is not a question of whether something is applicable, it is a question of how something can be read. 

OP: In the discussion on the Code, it seemed that the MPs of the Serbian Progressive Party were in fact threatening the non-existent opposition, former and future peers, stating that they would never allow violence in the Assembly that they had experienced primarily from the movement Dveri, but also from pro-European parties. Do you see the Code as another means of dealing with political dissidents or as an instrument for strengthening parliamentary integrity?

KG: The Code is adopted for the citizens. For example, it prescribes the availability of MPs to citizens, and we have heard almost nothing about that in the discussion. The Code prescribes additional rules on conflicts of interest. Therefore, there are elements for this Code that serve to strengthen integrity. However, the discussion itself actually shows that those who adopt the Code and who should implement it have not understood this very important “innovative” part. Citizens can insist on a closer and more direct MP-citizen relationship, but the launch of this instrument to strengthen parliamentary integrity will again depend on promotion led by the NGO sector.  

OP: The words “liar”, “thief”, “tycoon”, “traitor”, “jerk”, “thug” and many others are spoken every day in the Assembly by the ruling majority. No speaker in this autumn session stopped such a speech, much less issued a warning. As the Speaker of the Assembly, Ivica Dačić, has recently said, now that the Code has been adopted, that will not be happening. How realistic is it to expect that citizens or NGOs will submit reports due to hate speech, i.e. how realistic is it to expect that the Committee headed by Aleksandar Martinović will react to such reports? And if they do not react, what could be the next step?

KG: It is realistic to expect that NGOs submit complaints for hate speech, because they did the same to the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, but this institution did not deal with the speech of MPs due to immunity. In that sense, the House of Human Rights urged that the Code must enable at least one channel for citizens to initiate proceedings in the case of hate speech of MPs. The Committee has a clear deadline for acting on the application and it will show whether there is a sincere political will to implement it and, at least as stated in the introduction, bring us closer to the European Union.

OP: How are the codes, if any, applied in the countries of the region and, to your knowledge, does it suffice for the European Union representatives to see that Assembly fulfils an obligation only formally or will they seek compliance with the OSCE standards?

KG: In European integration processes, the form is evaluated, but the effect is appreciated. As far as ethics and codes are concerned, different solutions exist in codes in the region and have been applied for a decade. For example, there are codes without sanctions, but also codes with very severe sanctions, such as deductions in salary in certain percentage, exclusion from the session, and even revocation of the mandate. Due to disproportionate sanctions against opposition politicians, the Hungarian Parliament was brought before the European Court, for example, as it was determined in this case that fines of around 200 euros imposed on opposition politicians were disproportionate to the Code and thus represented a violation of freedom of expression.