Constitutional Boundaries of Presidential Power and General Level of Political Culture – The Case Of Serbia

The general level of democratic, political culture in one country is the important determinant that should be taken into consideration both when analyzing its constitutional order as well as when considering its future shaping and direction. Countries that have had a substantial discontinuity in their historical-democratic development (e.g. period of authoritarian regime), face special challenges when returning to the paths of liberal-democratic constitutionality, perhaps the biggest of which is raising the general level of political culture and (re)building a constitutional, democratic tradition. During this process particular systematic distortions may occur, among others, those regarding the mutual control and influence of the highest state authorities. In the Republic of Serbia, there is a noticeable inconsistency in what is generally perceived by the general public (as well as by the constitutional law scholars) as the level of powers and the authority of the President of the Republic. Constitutional framework is often being interpreted without taking the wider scope of the problem into consideration, which includes the immaturity of the democratic culture. This leads to (apparent) inconsistency between the presidential powers by the Constitution and how they really manifest themselves in reality. It is a matter of fact that the direct election of the President provides him with very high level of legitimacy and general visibility in society, but on the other hand, the powers explicitly given to him by the Constitution are not too excessive. However, the absolute absence of constitutional conventions of any kind and the general immaturity of constitutional and general political culture have for a consequence that everything that is not explicitly forbidden is being perceived as allowed. Thus, due to (un)intentional constitutional omissions, if the certain circumstances are met in the particular political moment, the President of the Republic can (within the same constitutional framework) either be the central political figure in a country that de facto concentrates executive power and practically has control over parliament as well, or, almost quite the opposite - one purely moderating figure without much of real influence – person who essentially does not have any executive power. There are several factors that will decide what kind of powers will the President of Serbia really have at his disposal, and one of the most important is certainly the completely legal possibility for the President to retain the leading position in a political party. Still insufficiently mature political and democratic culture combined with the inadequate constitutional framework in this sense lead to unpredictability of the real center of power and (paradoxically – legally) allows shifting from one form of quite soft semi-presidential system into the system where most of the effective power lies in hands of the President of the Republic.