Immunity of Deputies in the First Yugoslavia

Abstract

In the following discussion the author analyses the definition, character and significance of the deputies' immunity in the parliament of the first Yugoslav state. Besides the general legal-political outline and explanation, the author especially focuses on the actual parliamentary practice and role of immunity in the political life of the state. His analysis is based on parliamentary printed materials, interpretations of the contemporaries, shorthand notes, and the preserved, though extremely modest, materials of the Parliamentary Immunity Committee. In the first part of the discussion the author explores the immunity of deputies in the politically turbulent 1920s, and in the second part he focuses on the 1930s, the period after the restoration of the constitutional life on the basis of the Imposed Constitution, when nothing much remained of the previous immunity arrangements.