“Allow me to first thank the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Mr. Bohnet with whom I have been cooperating successfully since my election for National Assembly Speaker. This is not the first publication we have spoken about and it is not the first publication to help the MPs gain better insight into the essence of their role.

The current convocation has a very large number of first-time MPs. For them to perform their duty to the best of their ability in this, no matter how it might look to the public, most important state institution, they need to have a developed, strengthened capacity for the performance of said duty. This goes beyond what you see in the plenary hall. What the citizen see going on in the plenary hall are sessions discussing the process of law-making which is often conducted in a language not strictly legal, often laced with political jargon and confrontation between the political parties, which is perfectly natural in a democracy. However, what often remains unseen are the MPs efforts in the committees and in activities such as this one, for example in public hearings which have become an important component part of the legislative process.

Today, we are promoting the publication of Professor Marijana Pajvancic and the Konrad Adenauer Institute, but we should also spare a word or two for the very institute of public debate as something which has not been utilized enough in our country so far and now might be the perfect time to speak about it. Public debate is extremely important for the parliament as the most important representative institution because it means civic involvement into the legislative process and the opportunity to influence the decision-making process, which is important for every society and the democracy of every society. Participation of civil society in legislative activities and other opportunities available to the citizens to be kept adequately informed about the work of the most important state institution – the National Assembly, is something that has an undeniable impact on law-making.

Today, as stipulated by the Law on the National Assembly, said legislative body enjoys transparency. We have maintained the long-standing TV broadcast of the Assembly sessions, adding to it the option to follow the plenary sessions via the Internet and a live streaming of committee sittings. All the assembly committees are broadcast live via the Internet and you can watch the MPs get ready, speak at the committee sittings and make decisions. We broadcast everything that has been said at the sittings and publish it, often the very same day just a couple of hours afterwards, in the form of shorthand notes on the National Assembly’s website. Everything said at a National Assembly sitting is available as a shorthand note, you can see how different MPs voted, for or against or whether they abstained, whether they were present at the session and, of course, what they said at the session in question.

And there are also the frequent press conferences at the National Assembly, press releases, the National Assembly’s very active website which enables the international institutions and Serbian citizenship and all concerned, to follow the Assembly’s work by accessing the shorthand notes.

The institute of public hearing is something relatively new and underutilized. We insisted that the assembly committees, in addition to passing important legislation, use the institute of public hearing in the processes the committees considered very important. I chair the Committee on the Rights of the Child which has so far held three, and will soon organise a fourth public hearing. These public hearings addressed current pressing issues such as inclusion.

Inclusion is an unfortunately insufficiently active, insufficiently visible topic in the society due to a slew of daily political events, but it is nevertheless very important.

Public hearings attended by representatives of parents, representatives of, for example, the Roma community, representatives of schools, representatives of state institutions and the executive, representatives of the Assembly allow for a broad debate the reaches of which can be grasped in the course of the public hearing. We also had a public hearing on the abuse of children on the Internet. These topics have not been given sufficient debate room in our society and we believed them to be extremely important.

We had the special prosecutor for cybercrime. People came to tell us about real problems because we keep talking about the consequences, but when it comes to addressing problems it often turns banal like, for example, if we ask somebody for a computer containing certain data who has still not been accused by the company to save said data, not to turn it over, but save it, the company does not have the right to do so and that somebody can delete from their company computer all the data they accessed at a certain forum or their contacts with children before the charges have been officially filed.

Amendments of this kind in the legislation, in these kinds of regulations, allow us to combat abuse more efficiently. I gave you only two examples which I have personally come across in a public hearing, a public hearing which lead to specific solutions which will later be made into a law.

I believe that this is an important institution. You can see in the book how it is conducted in the Bundestag, the innovations employed by German parliamentarians, what they do better, similar or the same as us and I believe that the National Assembly has room for improvement. Of course, we are planning to pass a new law on the National Assembly which will improve the communication between the National Assembly and the citizens, but we need public support for it. I would like to stress that this is very important.

The point of the entire process is to give voice to the citizens, to have the MPs be someone who represents the citizens and to allow the citizens to directly participate in the decision-making process via the institute of public hearing both when it comes to laws and other regulations.

That is why I believe that it is time to discuss this issue especially in view of Serbia’s Euro-integration process. In said process Serbia will face serious and big challenges which I discussed yesterday at the Hungarian Parliament with our Hungarian colleagues, things that people do not even see today of which, let me tell you, the talks are just the first step. After the EU accession, we are yet to meet the challenges faced by all EU member states.

In this process, following the talks, in which the National Assembly has serious duties – to follow the entire negotiation process, set up a new committee for stabilisation and accession which will de-facto follow these efforts, as well as cooperate with all the existing assembly committees and the chief negotiator and minister in charge of European integration.

The institute of public hearing will achieve its true dimensions in the National Assembly in the next 10 years and I would like as many of you as possible to take part in these processes and to come and hear and, finally, say what you think because it is all recorded, it leaves a trace a great deal of which is later included into some future laws.

The better the quality of a public hearing, the more people take part, more civil and state institutions, the more peaceful, we had the chance to see, the later discussion and adoption of laws, with fewer conflicts, because the core program misunderstandings have been cleared up either in the committee sittings or public hearings.

I am grateful that you have written this publication and that it is being promoted at the National Assembly and I hope our cooperation will continue to be successful and boost the National Assembly’s reputation, as well as our capacities. Thank you.”