POLEMIKE O STATUSU DRŽAVE I KRALJEVINE SHS

Abstract

The article aims mainly at analyzing the issue of legal (dis)continuity between the Kingdom of Serbia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (hereinafter the Kingdom of SCS) within the context of an international dispute between Germany and the Kingdom of SCS, and to revealing the reasons for different court decisions interpretations in a particular case. By using the techniques of historical-legal and analytical methods in researching into documents and secondary opinions given by politicians and constitutional lawyers, the paper first gives a brief overview of international circumstances that enabled the post-war states formation. It also summarizes different opinions regarding the legal status of the State of SCS and the character of the First-December Act taking into account historical and modern international and constitutional criteria. The conclusion is made in the context of discussion regarding the central issue that Ivan Žolger’s interpretation that despite the verdict in the particular case, the Kingdom of SCS was a new state, since it was not created in accordance with the 1903 Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbia. In addition to the argument that the State of SCS met the basic criteria of statehood, and that the formation of the Kingdom of SCS interrupted the constitutional continuity of the Kingdom of Serbia, the contribution of the paper lies in the argument that different legal opinions were not so much the result of legal ambiguities, but primarily a reflection of one, out of many, political battles fought between the conflicting state ideologies.