The controversial public announcement of the acting Chairman of the Federal Constitutional Court Milan Vešovic, dated 16 February 2002, has caused may doubts among the public regarding the fate of the Act on the Single Tax on Additional Profit and Additional Property Obtained Using Special Privileges.

The Constitutional Court's decisions are legally binding for executive bodies of the Republic of Serbia. The substance of the decision is that the additional profit act is not retroactive, that there exist constitutional and legislative grounds for its passing, and that six provisions of the Act have been determined not to be in accordance with the Constitution. The six disputed provisions pertain to the taxation of privileged payments of frozen old foreign exchange savings and pyramid bank savings, board members' joint and several liability in matters of tax debt, non-existence of appeal against rulings denying tax payments in instalments, and non-application of property and contracts' legislation limitation periods. We stress that the cancellation of these provisions neither conceptually nor formally endangers the application of this Act.

We remind the acting Chairman of the Federal Constitutional Court that the practice of that judicial institution does not recognise `repeated consideration` of provisions of Acts already dealt with by that Court, irrespective of the result of the justices' vote. Any other approach or announcement of some `final decision on an act's agreement with the Constitution` represents a serious threat to the principle of legal security and to the legal order as a whole.

In that sense, we consider the announcement of Justice Vešovic - which disagrees with the Federal Constitutional Court's decision, the Court's practice and the elementary principles of the rule of law - to be his personal opinion, and not to have formal legal grounds.