Home > 1.2 Equal suffrage > SERBIA - Joint opinion on the constitutional and legal framework governing the functioning of democratic institutions - Electoral law and electoral administration
 
 
 
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Paragraph 123
 

The Guidelines require that an “institution functionally independent from other authorities should be responsible for auditing political parties and candidates in their use of administrative resources during electoral processes.” According to Article 145 of the Law on the Election of Members of Parliament, the (10) members of the Election Campaign Oversight Board are appointed by the National Assembly. Half of the appointments shall be proposed by the Government, while the remaining half are proposed by the National Assembly from among prominent public servants. No member can be a member of a political party. This means that the political parties in the opposition may only nominate a small part of the board, whereas there is no mechanism to avoid the government from nominating members with political bias. The Venice Commission and ODIHR recommend changing the system of nomination in order to either avoid any political decision-making (e.g. nominations made by media organisations, universities etc.) or foresee a balanced composition with nominations made only by political parties.