Decision of the Constitutional Court about the elections in to the High Council of the Prosecutor's Office (HPC) is copying the theft of political elections, and the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) is doing it using the same technology as during the elections for government bodies, Aleksandar Olenik, a lawyer and vice president of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina, told Vreme.
"Where he is not satisfied with the elections for the VST and where he thinks that they can do better in repeated elections, Social Media used his influence on the Constitutional Court to annul them and now by replacing the prosecutors he is trying to invent a majority that does not exist," says Olenik.
What did the Constitutional Court do?
The Constitutional Court accepted the appeals of six prosecutors close to the chief prosecutor of the Belgrade High Public Prosecutor's Office Nenad Stefanović, who many lawyers say is a "loyalist" of Aleksandar Vučić, in connection with the elections for the Supreme Court.
Such a decision of the Constitutional Court means repeating the election for the members of the Supreme Court in the part to which the objections referred.
By approving the appeals of those prosecutors on the election of the members of the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court annulled the decision of the Supreme Court, which had previously rejected those complaints.
This challenged the results of the election of five public prosecutors who should be members of the High Council of Prosecutors in the next five years.
The Constitutional Court accepted the appeals of Edis Arifović, Đorđe Mahovac, Jelena Kocić, Dušan Milosavljević, Ivan Filipović and Saša Avramović against the decision of the Supreme Administrative Court, which were annulled, so it was ordered that elections be held again in four polling stations.
An illegal way to get a majority
Olenik explains that the repetition of the election refers to those places where it is authorities it took a few votes for their candidate to be elected.
"They hope that in the meantime they will exert enough pressure to buy, to blackmail, to appoint a prosecutor, just so that in an artificial, illegal way they can get a majority in those election places," says Olenik.
He states that in this way the government wants to bring the VST completely under its control.
"Except for the decision of the Constitutional Court, which is illegal, everything else will be formally in order, because the vote is repeated. They say that there were no objections, but it is essentially theft and a violation of the law, because there is no reason to repeat the election. Besides, since the elections are secret, the public cannot find out who changed their mind or who voted again, but they certainly have an idea who they will force to change their mind in the meantime or who did not come out the first time and will vote now. The third option is that they will to be appointed new prosecutors who will vote, and that's why they chose those few polling stations where the difference is small," says Olenik.
The will of the prosecutors is not respected
He assesses that in this way the government does not respect the democratically expressed will of the prosecutors, that is, how they appreciated the qualities of their colleagues among themselves.
It indicates that the VST cannot directly influence the investigations of corrupt or by some other illegal actions of people from the government, but that is why he can do it indirectly.
"They will do this by influencing the prosecutors who will be appointed, by deciding on the assignment of prosecutors. The most important thing is that they will decide on the decisions of the chief public prosecutors. The VST cannot directly influence the investigations, but it can influence the prosecutors who lead the investigations. It can influence their selection, appointment, further career and promotion. So, for example, they can place their prosecutors where they are needed," concludes Olenik.
VST: The Constitutional Court did not follow the law
The High Council of the Prosecution announced on Thursday that it had received a decision approving the appeals of six public prosecutors who were reported to the Constitutional Court due to the alleged violation of electoral rights during the elections for members of the Supreme Court from the ranks of public prosecutors.
"We note that the Constitutional Court did not apply the provisions of the Law on the Constitutional Court and scheduled a public hearing regarding the appeals, and enabled the High Council of the Prosecution to directly explain the bases and reasons for the legal positions expressed in the adopted legal acts and statements," it was announced.
The Supreme Court of Justice notes with great regret that the Constitutional Court did not analyze with the necessary and due care all allegations of objections, appeals, and especially decisions and responses to appeals.
It was also stated that objections, appeals, decisions and responses to appeals clearly indicate the fact that the elections for elected members of the Council from the ranks of public prosecutors "were organized, held and concluded without any objections or objections during the election day and that the election results are indisputable, and that in his decision he did not engage in consideration of essential facts and evidence on whether there was a violation of electoral rights or not, but limited himself to deciding only on the procedural circumstances of holding an extraordinary session of the High Prosecution Council".
