The Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, Prof. Dr Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic visited the Faculty of Political Sciences today where she attended a session of its student parliament.

Greeting the students, Speaker Djukic-Dejanovic wished them success in their studies and future life stressing that the cooperation between the Faculty of Political Sciences and the Serbian Assembly would be expanded.

Through practice, the students will be able to learn about the Parliament’s work, participate in the collection of data for scientific research projects, as well as be initiate legislative activities as relates to the documents pertaining to that segment of the population, stressed the Speaker.

Answering the students’ question, the Serbian Parliament Speaker said that she expected the enactment of a new law on the election of deputies which would alter the electoral system opening up the possibility that a deputy be the owner of his/her term of office. She repeated her personal view that the deputy should be the bearer, owner of the term of office.

The future politicologists wanted to know whether a possible decrease in the number of deputies would make the Parliament’s work more efficient and lower its expenditure, to which the Speaker said that “the supreme legislative body could work more efficiently even with fewer deputies, but that it would not significantly lower its expenses”.

The students of the International Relations Department were interested in the effects of parliamentary diplomacy, and Djukic-Dejanovic explained that parliamentary diplomacy was often termed tourism, but that it was in fact “very serious work”. She told the students that parliamentarians are the ones who can help change the distorted image of Serbia via friendship groups and competent committees, as well as deepen the relations with foreign countries.