Religious Laws Delayed in Serbia

A delay in finalising proposed laws on religious organisations has been caused in Serbia due to the Serbian government waiting for commentaries to be submitted from the Serbian Orthodox Church. This has led to general criticisms from religious minorities reported Forum 18.

However, as the Minister of Religion, Milan Radulovic said there are no press releases or information about the situation: "When the time comes, all will be informed."

The draft of the law disappeared from the eyes of the public after the roundtable meeting in mid-March. A meeting was organised by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe missions in Serbia.

Originally, the meeting was planned to be held at the beginning of March, but was postponed and invited religious groups were contacted by phone on the day of the meeting, to be informed of the delay.

Despite this, the meeting was held behind closed doors without the presence of representatives from religious communities and the press.

The group of Dr. Zdravko Sordjan held several meetings to propose several improvements to the draft of the law, discussing the matter of religious freedom and the position of the religious communities.

During the meeting, two expert opinions were presented by the Council of Europe Venice Commission (European Commission for Democracy Through Law) as a response to the letter of Religion Minister in January.

The recommendations of the Commission are as follows:

-to restrict the scope of the law to the legal procedure of registration and the administrative-legal regime of 'religious organisations',

- to provide that the present law does not restrict the general guarantees of freedom of conscience and religion provided by the European Convention, especially to the benefit of every individual, affiliated or not, national or not, and to the benefit of every non-registered group,

- to propose a more coherent conception of the legal status of canon laws and ecclesiastical decisions,

- to restrict the discretionary power provided by the draft law, especially by improving some procedures of judicial review,

- and to maximise some concrete guarantees for the protection of pluralism and to limit to an honorary precedence the particular status and the 'State-building-role' of the Orthodox Church.

Representatives of human rights groups, such as Vidan Hadzi-Vidanovic from the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights were reported to have been disappointed, since the commission failed to ease the requirement of 700 members needed to register a religious organisation. This makes smaller gatherings illegal, meaning these communities will be not be able to "hold meetings, collect funds for their needs or receive gifts," according to Hadzi-Vidanovic.

Also, in his opinion it is in contrary to the European convention on Human rights, where individuals do not need to report their religion and beliefs to the state. If the law is passed as proposed, individuals will be forced to do so, since for the registration of religious organisations, members need to give out their ID numbers and addresses.

Another controversy is in Article 7 of the proposed law, where faiths are divided into the 'traditional' or 'historical' faiths and other faiths. Article 7 labels as traditional faith just seven religious communities: the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, the Islamic Faith Community, the Jewish Religious community, the Slovak Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church of Serbia, and the Hungarian Reformed Church.

This division means that the religious minorities will not have equal rights as the traditional faiths. Some denominations, such as the Baptists that had legal recognition during the world wars are not included in Article 7 as traditional.

Division into the traditional faiths and other faiths is "critical," Baptist Pastor Dane Vidovic said, "because it will affect other laws and areas of life, including rights to religious education in public schools, taxes and property, social security and pension funds."

Much confusion has been instigated by the imposition of taxes on religious organisations' properties. In the latest version of the proposed law it says: "property intended for performing religious services, administrative, educational and humanitarian work, accommodation of clergy and clerics, as well as monasteries, museums, libraries and other cultural institutions belonging to religious organisations are not subject to property tax if recorded as property belonging to a religious organisation"

The 2001 Law on Property Taxes states that the property of religious organisations used for religious services is exempt from property tax. However, in 2004 in the amendment, the government guarantees this exemption only to the seven traditional religious communities.

As a result of this, Serbia’s Baptist Union was fined 244 Euros and its vice-president Zarko Djordjevic as well during a hearing at a commercial court at the beginning of March.

"We didn't know we were supposed to do so," Pastor Djordjevic told Forum 18 afterwards, "but we were told in court that our ignorance does not free us from obeying the laws. Still they saw our amazement and treated us mildly. If we do everything by the regulations in the next year, our sentence will be suspended in March 2006."

Dr. Sordjan thinks that these kinds of financial regulations that apply to religious organisations are not needed, since these organisations are "not commercial organisations, they are not profit-making and live on contributions."

"We believe that the state has no business in the financial side of religious organisations. This complicates relations between religious communities and the state and imposes financial oversight in a very private sphere – religious life."