Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina

The Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (Статут Аутономне Покрајине Војводине), enacted in its contemporary form in 2014, stands as the paramount legal document outlining the fundamental principles governing Vojvodina within the framework of the Constitution of Serbia and national laws. This statute, adopted by the Assembly of Vojvodina with the approval of the National Assembly of Serbia, delineates the region's autonomy, with specific provisions related to various aspects of it. Vojvodina, a region with a rich historical and cultural tradition, has experienced varying degrees of autonomy over the years, influenced by geopolitical shifts and historical events.

History
Over the years Vojvodina introduced multiple fundamental legal documents that increased of decreased the level of the provincial autonomy. Serb communities settled in the southern parts of the Kingdom of Hungary (Syrmia, Bačka, Banat, Slavonia, Baranya) already during the Middle Ages with their numbers further increasing with the Great Migrations of the Serbs. Serbs requested various autonomous territorial and cultural rights on multiple occasions including at the 1790 Council of Timisoara, 1848 May Assembly and 1861 Annunciation Council. Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary nevertheless limited Serb autonomy to Eastern Orthodox religious and schooling self-government, particularly after the abolition of the Serbian Vojvodina in 1849 and Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar in 1860. Requests for Serb territorial autonomy were silenced until the beginning of the World War I and the end of the empire. The experience and subsequent abolition of Serbian Vojvodina and Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar nevertheless inspired cultural and political leaders among Prečani Serbs advocating for unification of closer links with the Principality and Kingdom of Serbia.

On November 25, 1918, the Great National Assembly of Serbs, Bunjevci and other Slavs proclaimed unification of the Banat, Bačka and Baranja with the Kingdom of Serbia soon leading to the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia). The unification was perceived as a realization of major political objectives of the Serbs in Vojvodina limiting most of the further claims for autonomy in the Interwar period and with Novi Sad serving as a seat of the Danube Banovina. Only some political and cultural leaders such as Vasa Stajić advocated for preservation of Vojvodina's distinctiveness within the new state.

Socialist Yugoslavia
During the World War II in Yugoslavia the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia established the Main National Liberation Committee for Vojvodina in 1943 with the body confirming once again the union with the People's Republic of Serbia within the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. During the war, Yugoslav partisans established a strong presence in the region and fought against the division of Vojvodina between the Nazi puppet Independent State of Croatia, German-ruled Banat and Hungarian occupied areas advocating instead for the post-war multicultural autonomous Vojvodina in new Yugoslavia.

Presidium of the People's Republic of Serbia introduced the first new Law on the Organization of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina already in 1945. In 1948 Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, with the assent from the republic, introduced its first Statute defining Vojvodina as an autonomous region within Serbia and reaffirming the right for the Presidium of Serbia to scrap unconstitutional or unlawful provincial decisions. Following the 1948 Tito–Stalin split and the introduction of the principles of the socialist self-management, in 1953 Vojvodina introduced the new Statute, this time independently and without republican assent preventing the right of the republican bodies from scaping provincial decisions.

In 1963 the third Statute was introduced expanding provincial autonomy, elevating the administrative status of Novi Sad, and introducing the Supreme Court of Vojvodina as a branch of the Supreme Court of Serbia. Already in 1969 Vojvodina expanded its autonomy once again by introducing the Constitutional Act of Vojvodina that alongside Serbian was now directly subordinate to principles of the federal Yugoslav Constitution. The term national minorities was changed in the new Act to nationalities (narodnosti) while Novi Sad gained the status of the capital city of Vojvodina.

In 1974 the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina introduced the Constitution of Vojvodina following the introduction of the new federal level 1974 Yugoslav Constitution. The document with the long preamble and 430 articles introduced almost all of the elements enjoyed up until that time only by Yugoslav republics, introduced the independent Constitutional Court of Vojvodina and redefined the relations with the Socialist Republic of Serbia on the basis of common interest and provisions of republican and provincial constitutions. The 1974 Constitution of Vojvodina represented the peak of the decentralization within Serbia with the late 1980s Anti-bureaucratic revolution initiated by Slobodan Milošević representing the sharp turn in the direction of the renewed centralization embodied in numerous constitutional amendments reaffirming the link with the republic. The motivation for the change was the widespread perception of the Serbian political leadership that such a high level of autonomy put Serbia in highly unequal position compared to other Yugoslav republics. Following the 1990 Serbian constitutional referendum Serbia introduced a new constitution which led to the adoption of the new Statute of Vojvodina in 1991, as a simple bylaw, once again with the assent from the republic. From 1993 onwards provincial bodies remained almost without any delegated power.

Post-Cold War period
Following the 2000 Overthrow of Slobodan Milošević the new Serbian democratic government led by Zoran Đinđić firstly introduced the so-called Omnibus law in 2002 which reaffirmed certain provincial functions of Vojvodina. Following the peaceful dissolution of Serbia and Montenegro in 2006 Serbia effectively regained its sole independence not shared with any wider federation leading to the introduction of the new Statute of Vojvodina in 2008 with effect in 2009. The basis for the new statute was introduced in the new 2006 Constitution of Serbia which in article 185 defines the statute as the highest legal act of the province and with article 194 stating that it must follow constitutional provisions. The Constitutional Court of Serbia is entitled to decide on conformity of the Statute and other provincial regulations with the constitution and laws while the province can determine the provincial body which can make complains to the court in questions related to the protection of autonomous rights.

The new statute strongly reaffirmed the autonomy but focused it primarily on executive power without any substantial legislative, judicial and constitutional jurisdiction but with additional 2009 Omnibus law expanding the scope of areas of the provincial significance regulated by Vojvodina bodies and with ambiguous status of Novi Sad. That same year the Democratic Party of Serbia brought the new Statute in front of the Constitutional Court of Serbia arguing that autonomous provisions are too broad and unconstitutional. The court remained silent on the issue for the following three years publishing its decision only after the 2012 Serbian parliamentary election when a number of provisions of the 2009 Statute were declared unconstitutional, including on the capital city status of Novi Sad and provisions on independent cross-border cooperation of Vojvodina with other regions and European Union. The decision triggered substantial updates to the Statute which now defined Novi Sad as a administrative centre and the seat of provincial bodies while the Government of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina was renamed into the Provincial Government.

Statute articles
Article 1.

Vojvodina is an autonomous province of the citizens who live in it, within the Republic of Serbia.

Vojvodina is a region in which traditional multiculturalism is preserved, and other European principles and values.

AP Vojvodina is an inseparable part of Serbia.

Article 6. National rights:

In Vojvodina, the Serbs, Hungarians, Slovaks, Croats, Montenegrins, Romanians, Roma, Bunjevci, Ruthenians and Macedonians, as well as other numerically smaller national communities that live in it, are equal in exercising their rights.

Among the statute's 70 other articles are guarantees of human rights, minority rights, the use of the minority languages and alphabets, and the banning of capital punishment and human cloning. In official use is the Serbian Language and Cyrillic alphabet and minority languages Hungarian, Slovak, Croatian, Romanian and Ruthenian and their respective alphabets, in accordance with the law and the provincial Assembly decision.