The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights would like to express its satisfaction with the latest move by the Ministry of religion of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, which replaced the old text of the Draft Law the freedom of the religion, churches, religious organizations and religious associations with the new Draft Law on religious organizations. The Belgrade Centre considers that the Ministry has thusly in the best way possible met with the criticisms of numerous religious organizations and representatives of civil society, including the Centre itself: that it was not ready for dialogue in the process of drafting this very important new law. We hope that after this development the Ministry will strive even more strongly for consensus, in order to create, by joint effort, a better and enduring Law on religious organizations. The Belgrade Centre offers its full cooperation and assistance to the Ministry in this major legislative project.
The Centre particularly emphasizes its pleasure at the willingness of the Ministry to remove or at the very least mellow out most of the contested provisions of the Draft. It is also encouraging that religious associations have, to a great extent, been made equal with traditional churches and religious communities. The terminology used in the new Draft is also far more modern than the one in the text of the previous version.
The Centre will now make some remarks, which, if accepted, will in our opinion significantly improve the quality of the Draft. They are for the most part of a purely technical nature, and do not impact the essence of the provisions as they stand.
1. a) Even though the legal vocabulary has been much altered, some formulations have “survived” the major overhaul, which we consider not to be appropriate for a secular legal act. For example, it is unnecessary to proclaim the time of religious ceremonies to be “sacred” time, nor to proclaim temples to be “sacred” facilities. The state is required to ensure the inviolability of a temple, and to protect religious ceremonies from disturbance, irrespective of whether the ceremony or the church are considered to be sacred or not. We also feel that the wording from Article 2 of the Draft – “godly acts” – is not appropriate in a secular law.
b) The word “sveštenoslužitelji” (priests) is in many ways particular to Christian culture, so we feel that the word “duhovnici” (clergy) would be more acceptable.
2. We also propose that the new religious associations, as described in Article 13 of the Draft, should be automatically enrolled into the registry of religious organizations, subject to the same conditions imposed upon traditional churches and religious communities.
3. The Centre calls upon the Ministry to reconsider the wording of Article 41, which gives special status to Orthodox and Roman Catholic monasteries. We feel that the focal points of the cultures of several peoples living in Serbia, and especially Muslims and Jews, are not in these monasteries, but in extraordinarily important and unique mosques and synagogues. This issue should, in our opinion, better be dealt with in the laws on the protection on cultural monuments, thereby avoiding arbitrariness and potential discrimination.
4. The Centre also calls upon the Ministry to reconsider the formulation of Article 63 of the Draft, which prescribes the conditions for registration of new religious communities, particularly in the part which requires 1000 signatures of the faithful in order to register a new community. According to international human rights instruments accepted by Serbia and Montenegro, freedom of religion can be enjoyed “individually or in community with others” (ICCPR, Article 18.1), or “either alone or in community with others” (ECHR, Article 9.1). In addition, no one can be compelled to publicly proclaim his or her religious conviction, regardless of the circumstances. If the Government wished to prevent potential abuse and evasion of fiscal obligations, it could have found another solution. We also recommend to change the provision which allows only Serbian nationals to create new religious communities.. Accepting our remarks would make the current Article 64 of the Draft unnecessary.
The Centre calls upon the Ministry to organize public debates, to which all interested parties would be invited, in order to successfully conclude this exceptional legislative project.
Beogradski centar za ljudska prava, Beogradska ulica 54/7, 11000, Beograd, SR; tel/fax: +381 (0)11 2435 825, 3447 121, 3447 120,
