The authorities rushed to use all possible means to try to stop the "arbitrariness" of citizens, as well as professional civil servants. On Tuesday, November 25, the parliament will already have a proposal for changes Law on Public Prosecution, and tabloids and pro-government agencies have already revealed what the state is planning with these changes.
First, Tanjug announced that the changes envisage the return of the institution of referral of public prosecutors from lower to higher public prosecutor's offices, which will be decided by the Council of Prosecutors, and no longer by the Supreme Public Prosecutor. Then "Novosti" shared with the readers how and why this "hell plan" was worked out.
"The High Prosecution Council will review all decisions of the Supreme Public Prosecutor within 30 days of adoption Zagorke Dolovac about the referral of prosecutors, which it brought in the past period", writes "Novosti". "Our source from the judiciary believes that the Council will repeat certain decisions on referred prosecutors, while some individuals could be returned to the parent prosecutor's office from which they were referred to the Public Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime and the Public Prosecutor's Office for War Crimes."
This is the government's reaction to the "prosecutor coup", as the qualified decision of individual prosecutors to stick to the law, and not the demands of the top of the Serbian Progressive Party.
Rat Stefanović - Dolovac: He proposes, she no longer adopts
According to Radovan Lazić, a member of the Association of Prosecutors of Serbia, the bill could, based on announcements from the pro-government media, be explained as another attempt to control prosecutors on several levels.
"The first part will take away the authority of Zagorka Dolovac to decide where the prosecutors will be assigned," Lazić told "Vreme".
Until the big split between the supreme public prosecutor Zagorka Dolovac and chief prosecutor Nenad Stefanović it came during of the legal process responsible for the fall of the canopy and the prosecution of citizens who are regime arrested for protest the previous year. Dolovac, who for years acted in accordance with the wishes of the top of the SNS, ignored their decisions and thus entered into an informal war with Nenad Stefanović, who remained loyal to the regime.
Until recently, Dolovac and Stefanović assigned the prosecutors together by him proposing them, and according to the law, she decided on those decisions. And she accepted each one. Nevertheless, since she "reneged" from the government, the regime now wants to take away this authority from her, Rašić assumes.
If you're good – you stay.
The second part of the amendments to the law refers to the fact that prosecutors from lower prosecutor's offices will now be able to be referred to higher ones, says Rašić.
"I don't see the purpose of this decision, except for the possibility that the authorities will keep them in their hands in this way. So, the prosecutors will not be elected to a new position, but only temporarily sent. That way, the Council will be able to decide on their fate, depending on how they behave and what decisions they make," he explains.
The provisions on the referral of public prosecutors from basic to higher public prosecutor's offices for a period of three years were abolished by legal amendments from 2023. However, the pro-government media reported that the decision is now being changed because all of this "caused a lot of problems in the work and functioning of the public prosecutor's organization, due to the non-continuous selection of public prosecutors by the High Council of Prosecutors in the past two years."
This system is something similar to temporary employment. The authorities have been illegally using this opportunity for years to control employees in public companies, so that they do not accidentally do something that they do not like. Thus, just as those temporary workers will be fired if they do not go to a protest that limits the government or support student protests, prosecutors will also be reassigned - if they happen to make a "wrong" decision.
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