National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia / Activities / Activity details
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Two-Day Seminar Held on Public Hearings and Guidelines for Conducting Public Hearings
The National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia organised a two-day seminar for the National Assembly Service employees, at the National Assembly House, on 30 November and 1 December, with the topic Public hearings and guidelines for conducting public hearings.
In the course of the two-day seminar, the lecturers, officers of the British Parliament’s lower house Alistair Doherty and Paul Silk educated the participants on the Westminster practice of organising public hearings stressing that public hearings should be a stage that would improve the quality of the committees’ work.
The British Parliament’s lower house has two types of committees, ones dealing with legislation which are formed ad hoc for each law and last the duration needed to review a bill, while the oversight committees have a five-year mandate and are responsible for the work of the ministries and control certain topics by frequently organising public hearings. The lecturers stated that all the participants invited to public hearings at the British Parliament are obliged to attend and that both the choice of the topic and its detailed deliberation are considered extremely important for the quality of the work in the course and after the completion of the public hearing. They also suggested that the employees in charge of organising public hearings should attend professional training and that, after a public hearing from his/her scope, each committee chairperson should convene a committee sitting to submit a report containing the conclusions made at the public hearing.
All the participants agreed that by organising public hearings the employees have the opportunity to take part and provide professional support in conducting these events of great importance for the work of the parliamentary committees.
In the course of the seminar the participants were involved in an interactive identification of disadvantages of public hearings, committee member briefings and drafting of guidelines for public hearings.
After the completion of each session, they were divided into groups to discuss the disadvantages in the organisation of public hearings and possible ways to overcome them and they prepared tasks, materials and information based on the principles discussed at the previous session.
The seminar for the National Assembly Support Service employees was realised in cooperation with Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the non-governmental organisation CRTA.
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9.00 - sitting of the Committee on Spatial Planning, Transport, Infrastructure and Telecommunications (National Assembly House, 13 Nikola Pasic Square, hall 3)
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9.20 - press conference of the NEW DSS – POKS (NADA) Parliamentary Group (National Assembly House, 13 Nikola Pasic Square, Central Hall)
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9.30 - sitting of the European Integration Committee (National Assembly House, 13 Nikola Pasic Square, hall 4)
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9.30 - sitting of the Defence and Internal Affairs Committee (National Assembly House, 13 Nikola Pasic Square, hall 2)
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10.00 - press conference of the Ecological Uprising Parliamentary Group (National Assembly House, 13 Nikola Pasic Square, Central Hall)
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10.30 - sitting of the Foreign Affairs Committee (National Assembly House, 13 Nikola Pasic Square, hall 4)
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12.00 - public hearing of the Culture and Information Committee on the topic: Public interview with the proposed candidates for Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media Council members (National Assembly Building, 14 Kralja Milana Street, Small Hall)
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15.00 - sitting of the Culture and Information Committee (National Assembly Building, 14 Kralja Milana Street, Small Hall)
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15.30 - the PFG with Italy, the Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta meets with the Italian delegation to the Central European Initiative Parliamentary Dimension (National Assembly House, 13 Nikola Pasic Square, hall 3)
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16.00 - the National Assembly Speaker meets with the Head of the EU Delegation to receive the EC Report on Serbia’s Progress in 2025 (National Assembly House, 13 Nikola Pasic Square, hall 1)
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16.20 - press statements on the delivered EC Report on Serbia’s Progress in 2025 (National Assembly House, 13 Nikola Pasic Square, Central Hall)
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17.00 - press conference of the Green-Left Front – Don’t Let Belgrade D(r)own and Movement of Free Citizens (PSG) – Party of Democratic Action of Sandzak (SDA Sandzak) – Party for Democratic Action (PDD) parliamentary groups (National Assembly House, 13 Nikola Pasic Square, Central Hall)