Search

The postwar development of the Constitutional system of Yugoslavia (1945–1974) was very dynamic. During the 1950s, under the influence of the Soviet model but with many specific solutions deriving from the liberation struggle and its original social revolution, the system developed in two directions1: with a strengthening of the elements of the Assembly Government System, based on the principle of unity of powers, and, at the same time, with the development of self-government, the form of “economic” democracy with elements of direct democracy and involving the people actively in political life. In parallel, Yugoslavia, formally a federal state but practically to a large degree a unitarian and centralized state with a kind of “ineffective federalism”2, gradually became a real federal state, with the stressed autonomy of the member states and their responsibility for the functioning of the whole state. The development in the directions mentioned was not always proportionate and free from troubles, but the general orientation remained constant. The new Constitution (1974) is also characterized by some new organizational forms, and first of all the introduction of the delegate system, i.e. direct elected delegations in every basic labour and local community, forming the basis of the assemblies at all levels of social organization — from the commune to the federal state.