Jurisdiction оf тhe Federation аnd Federal Units аnd Their Participation in the Exercise of Authorities in the Federation / Nadležnosti Federacije i federalnih jedinica i njihovo učešće u vršenju vlasti u Federaciji

Abstract

Distribution of jurisdiction between a federation and federal units generally represents one of the important issues concerning forms of the state, especially the forms of state organization, forms of political organization, as well as forms of state authorities. The jurisdiction of the federation and its federal units is a constitutional matter, which, in fact, significantly determines the type of governmental structure, that is, determines what is the federation like in its character: loose, centralized or quasi federation.
Jurisprudence has not even until the present days adequately resolved controversy of sovereignty of the federal units and the federation as a complex state. Legal theory tries to resolve this issue through the so-called cooperative federalism, and some legal theorists try to replace the notion of sovereignty with the notion of autonomy of the federal units. Of course, this does not provide an answer to the question. The answer cannot be given by those legal theorists who try to transfer the issue of sovereignty of the federation and of the federal units from a legal to a political court, arguing that sovereignty should be distributed, and that both, the federation and the federal units should be sovereign, regardless of mentioned types of federation, which is impossible (or it is a federal state-federation or union of states, so that it is not a federation any more, but a confederation).