Support to the communal police in Serbia

In order to further support the transfer of power from the central to the local level of government in Serbia and to improve efficiency of the local self-governments, The Law on Communal Police as well as the necessary by-Laws were adopted in 2009.

The purpose of communal police in Serbia is to maintain public order in the cities.

The communal police shall deal with issues relating to:

• maintaining public communal order
• oversight over the application and execution of legislation and other acts in the communal sector areas in the competence of the cities
• oversight over the conduct of city and suburb traffic
• environmental protection
• protection of roads, streets and other public assets of importance to the cities.

The Mission together with the Council of Europe has been actively supporting all activities related to the preparation, adoption and promotion of the Law and by-laws.

The law is considered to be essential for promoting and realising the decentralisation process in Serbia and is as such in line with the Democratization Department’s programme objectives, namely to support Serbia in the establishment of democratic and effective state institutions by inter alia increasing the competencies of local self-governments.

The Mission's Democratization Department, upon receiving a request for assistance from the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government (MPALSG), decided to support the MPALSG working group (WG) tasked with drafting the new law in line with international standards.

The Mission provided support in the preparation process of the Law on Communal Police. The Department funded a national expert in police legislation to develop the first concept of the draft law and to further assist the working group in preparing the final draft law. The expert closely cooperated with the MPALSG as well as with the expert on local self-government funded by the Council of Europe.