At the proposal of 110 deputies, on Tuesday, November 4, the National Assembly of Serbia will vote on the lex specialis, a law that will allow demolition of the General Staff, a complex that is part of the history and identity of this nation.
General interest
Lex specialis is officially called the Bill on special procedures for the implementation of the project of revitalization and development of the location in Belgrade between Kneza Miloša, Masarikova, Birčaninova and Resavska streets, and its text is available on the Parliament's website. There are 11 members.
The proposed Law declares the project at the site of the bombed General Staff complex to be a project of general interest and importance for the Republic of Serbia, and the competent authorities are obliged to proceed with priority and urgent procedures in the procedures that are carried out for its realization.
In order to effectively implement the project, the authority responsible for planning and construction, as stated, can issue a building permit before the finality of the decision on property-legal relations, if a request for expropriation of the land or building, or other appropriate act in accordance with the law, has been submitted.
Construction of 30.000 square meters is planned on the site of the General Headquarters complex.
Special permits
Sanja Solarević, councilor of the ZLF in the municipality of Savski venac, especially points out that the lex specialis "completely suspends the Law on Planning and Construction. The lex specialis plans to demolish existing buildings based on a special building permit."
He says that according to the lex specialis, the demolition of the General Staff is "classified as preparatory work that precedes the issuance of a construction permit," which is "against the law according to which preparatory work is carried out on the basis of the issued construction permit and not before it."
"The SNS-SPS authorities are obviously in a hurry to demolish the General Headquarters before obtaining the location conditions and construction permit, probably because based on the valid urban plans, they would not be able to obtain either the location conditions or the construction permit for the construction of commercial or residential-business buildings on plots that are publicly owned," says Sanja Solarević.
He explains that "since on the basis of the valid plans it is not possible to obtain location conditions or construction permits for the construction of lucrative buildings such as hotels or residential and commercial towers, the SNS-SPS government plans to change the existing urban plans through the lex specialis or, what is more likely, to create a new spatial plan of a special purpose area, as it did for Belgrade on the water."
Public view has been removed.
Solarević draws attention to the fact that in this case as well, "the lex specialis violates the Law on Planning and Construction with regard to the preparation of planning documents."
For example, "early public review was dropped even though it is required by law, while public review was shortened from 30 to 15 days so that citizens would be virtually completely unable to submit objections to a plan whose sole purpose will be to legalize the destruction of our cultural heritage."
He says that "the lex specialis proposal was signed among others by MPs Nada Macura and Sanja Džajić, who are also SNS councilors in the Savski Venac Municipality Assembly."
By the way, the Proposal of lex specialis was included in the agenda of the Serbian Parliament only two days before the session scheduled for November 4, although the Rules of Procedure state that at least 15 days are needed.
Belgrade and Republic Institute
Employees of the City and Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, 75 of them, appealed to the members of the Serbian Parliament not to vote for the lex specialis.
"Be sure that your support for this bill, which subordinates the national interest to the personal interest of a foreign investor, represents treason in the truest sense of the word and that history will remember you as such. By doing so, you will cause irreparable damage to the state of Serbia and its cultural heritage, and you will cause indelible personal shame to yourself that you will carry for the rest of your life," they stated, among other things.
ICOMOS
In that short response time, the professional public requests the cancellation of this proposal from the procedure.
In a public letter to the Government of Serbia, the National Committee of ICOMOS Serbia cites a number of links that point to the importance of the General Staff as a cultural asset, because 110 MPs behave as if they are not aware of this, but also "the fact that the laws on cultural assets, on cultural heritage, as well as the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia itself, have been violated, that its legal protection has been abolished by an illegal act, and that the proceedings of the Public Prosecutor's Office for organized crime are ongoing.
"The National Committee of ICOMOS Serbia strongly opposes the adoption of the lex specialis, which destroys not only the cultural heritage of Serbia, but also endangers its reputation in the world," it says at the end of their statement.
Despite TOK
Before them, she sent the same request to the Government of Serbia A group of institutions, professional associations, organizations and individuals who signed the Declaration on the fate of the Belgrade Fair and the General Staff.
"It is worrisome that the law is being proposed at a time when the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime has launched investigative proceedings against the acting director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, Goran Vasić, the acting director of the City Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, Aleksandar Ivanović, and the secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Slavica Jelača, who admitted that they participated in the falsification of the documents on the basis of which the procedure for the termination of the protection of the General Staff was initiated, and then the Decision of the Government of the Republic of Serbia on the termination of the status of a cultural asset was made." they said, among other things.
