Police state in the service of national goals and reflections of the constitutional laws of Prince Mihailo

Abstract

Having ascended the throne once more in 1860, Prince Mihailo fundamentally changed the constitutional situation in the country, setting as the highest goals transformation of the state and national liberation. In order to avoid Turkish interference in constitutional questions of the Principality of Serbia, still a vassal state at the time, Mihailo derogated the 1838 Constitution with constitutional laws. His constitutional laws, according to some of his contemporaries and many authors, created the conditions for a 'police state' to function. The laws on the National Assembly, on the Central government administration, on the Council of State, on Municipalities and municipal governments, made possible the functionality of an authoritarian regime, that is, a type of absolutism. However, Mihailo's enlightened absolutism gave the Prince and the state bodies a possibility for quicker prosperity of the state and the beginning of reaching highly placed national goals. The so-called 'police state' can, in certain historical moments (especially in a peasant state in the making, as was the case with Serbia), be a more efficient and desirable way of state organization than other state regulations.

Keywords

• prince mihailo
• police state
• constitutional laws
• absolutism