The Minister of Sustainable Development and Tourism, Pavle Radulovic, grossly deceived the last week when he said that there had been a public debate on the draft of the new Law on Planning and Construction held back in 2015, because it is a completely new document compared to what was presented to the public more than a year ago.
In November 2015, the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism (MORT) presented to citizens and professionals for discussion the Law on Spatial Planning and Construction. That version contained provisions that are not present in the final document, which does not even have the same name.
It is true that the public discussion involved interested parties, representatives of local governments and state institutions, that non-governmental organizations, including MANS, commented the text. However, the text which was last week presented by the Minister Radulovic at the press conference is significantly different from what we had discussed a year ago. In addition, the amendments that have been made meanwhile indicate that what we have before us is a completely new law, with provisions that the public has not heard until now.
The new provisions cannot be the result of suggestions of participants in the public discussion, what can be seen by simply examining the report from the discussion. Thus, the document does not reveal who proposed the complete abolition of local planning documents or the obligation to obtain a building permit before construction begins. We are absolutely sure that the local administration comments on the text of the draft would have been fundamentally different a year ago had they been aware of the intention of the government to deny them the right to govern their own territories. Simply, the report from the public discussion shows that none of the participants insisted on such provisions.
Therefore, we suspect that these disputable provisions were prepared by the government, after the public discussion, and then the public was presented “a done deal”. This is not the first time for private interests to find a way to “get involved” in defining the final legal provisions after a public discussion. It is a usual practice in many ways when it comes to the area of spatial planning.
However, amending crucial parts of a law, stripping it of its essence, violent introduction of deregulation of space without adequate control as a balance, is something that can be motivated only by private and not by the public interest.
The amendments to the law made after the public discussion are so important that they will significantly affect the operation of local governments from the spatial planning, primarily in coastal municipalities, to financial sustainability and the ability to independently plan their own development.
We consider it unacceptable foist our citizens provisions on which they were not consulted and feign a public discussion, thus stultifying its purpose. We expect all local governments to oppose this kind of treatment by the Ministry of Sustainable Development and to defend their constitutional rights.
MANS calls on the Ministry once again to withdraw the draft law and organize a public discussion, because the document that would largely define the existence of the local government cannot be made behind closed doors and without consulting the public.
Dejan Milovac
Director of MANS Investigation Center
