Allow me first to answer your question. Out of a total number of 250 members of Parliament, one-third are women. Also, I have to add that in Serbia we have a proportional election system, which means that citizens, the voters, are actually voting for the list of candidates of political parties, basically, that are on this list.
Having said that, in line with the law on the election of MPs, each list of candidates needs to have at least one-third female representatives. But once the election process is completed, well, it is not obligatory; it is not binding for a certain political party to allocate one-third of the number of seats they have won in Parliament to women.
As for professional services--and there is one common professional service for the National Assembly of Serbia--you can also judge that from the composition of this delegation, which, as you can see, is mostly comprised of women.
During this visit to Canada, we have learned a lot of things that are very useful to us, but we know you are very busy so we're not able to ask as many questions as we would like. One main thing we have learned is what it actually means to have autonomy of Parliament from the executive branch.
In 2006, Serbia passed a new constitution, so in line with the new constitution, of course, a new Parliament act needs to be drafted. Its drafting is currently under way. Of course, according to the constitution, all other acts need to be harmonized with the constitution, including the standing orders of the Parliament. That is exactly the reason that everything we have learned here will be very useful. Hopefully, all the issues we have learned about from you will be included in the draft Parliament act.
One of the main issues or main elements that we will try to include in this Parliament act is what we have seen here in respect to the financial and administrative autonomy of the House of Commons and, of course, the Senate. In that respect, in Serbia a new working body is being established currently that will resemble your committee, the committee on public accounts. Hopefully, it will deal with similar issues and internal audits of public spending.