Law on the register of administrative procedures adopted
On April 28, 2021, the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Law on the Register of Administrative Procedures, which entered into force on May 7, 2021.
The purpose of this law is to regulate the establishment and management of the Register, which contains accurate and up-to-date data on procedures in order to provide accurate and publicly available information on procedures conducted by competent authorities and to establish a unique methodology for their standardized, efficient and economical management.
In accordance with the law, the Administrative Procedure (hereinafter: the procedure) is an administrative and other procedure conducted by state bodies and organizations, bodies and organizations of autonomous provinces and bodies and organizations of local self-government units, institutions, public enterprises, special bodies through which regulatory function, as well as legal and natural persons entrusted with public authorities (hereinafter: bodies or competent authorities) and which are initiated at the request of economic entities and citizens in order to exercise a certain right or fulfill a prescribed obligation, and which is entered in the Register of Administrative Procedures in accordance with this law and the accompanied Methodology. For the purposes of the law, court proceedings and proceedings conducted by holders of public authority entrusted by the court, proceedings arising from employment in a body, as well as proceedings initiated at the request of a body and conducted by another body are not considered administrative procedures.
The Register is a unique, centralized, electronically kept record of procedures conducted in the Republic of Serbia and administrative requirements for business, in which data are entered and stored in accordance with the law and adopted bylaws.
The Register is established and managed by the state administration body responsible for performing professional tasks related to the implementation of regulatory reform and analysis of the effects of regulations, with the technical support of the Government service responsible for designing, harmonizing, developing and functioning e-government systems. All procedures carried out by the competent authorities at the request of economic entities and citizens, as well as all changes in those procedures, shall be entered in the Register. Registration is done electronically.
The law clearly defines the data on the procedure that the Register must contain, as well as the public availability of data from the Register on the eGovernment Portal.
As for the deadlines for entry in the Register, if the legal basis is a regulation, the deadline for entry is no later than the date of entry into force of that regulation, unless the legal basis is a regulation issued by the holder of public authority in the exercise of public authority, where the deadline is draft of that act to the competent ministry in order to obtain an opinion.
If the legal basis for entry in the Register is a general act to which prior consent is given by the Government, i.e. state administration body, the deadline is no later than the day of submission of that act to the Government, i.e. state administration body for obtaining that consent, unless the legal basis is a general act of the holder of public authorizations which does not belong to the previously mentioned general acts, where the deadline is until the day of publication of that act.
The obligators of registration are required no later than 30 days from the date of entry into force of the regulation, which will further regulate the functioning of the Registry (to be brought within 90 days of the law coming into force) to carry out registration procedures pertaining to economic subjects. Obligators of registration are obliged to register and update all procedures within their competence that refer to citizens in the Register no later than January 1, 2023, except for local self-government units that can fulfill their obligation to register procedures by January 1, 2024.
The register will cover all administrative procedures for citizens and business entities by January 1, 2025 at the latest.
The state administration body responsible for keeping the Register and the Government service responsible for electronic administration are obliged to make the data entered and updated in the Register publicly available no later than 30 days from the day the law enters into force.
