More than seven months, several proceedings and a fight between the court and the prosecutor's office - what is happening with the indictments for the fall of the canopy of the Railway Station in Novi Sad
More than seven and a half months have passed since falling canopy Railway stations in Novi Sad, when 16 people died and one person was seriously injured, and the court proceedings did not progress far.
From the "surreal quickly completed investigation", as the representatives of the authorities in Serbia said, it has come to mutual transfer of responsibility of the judicial authorities, writes the BBC in Serbian.
The Higher Public Prosecutor's Office (VJT) in Novi Sad has prepared an indictment against 13 suspects for the omissions that led to the fall of the canopy.
The High Court in Novi Sad, however, sent the case back for further investigation.
In an unusual twist two months later, the prosecution says it is "unable to complete the investigation" due to a court backlog.
From the court, they opposed the prosecution, claiming that they work "immediately and without delay".
Justification
Both the prosecution and the court are "justifying themselves as to why the proceedings have stalled at this stage," Radovan Lazić, a member of the Presidency of the Association of Prosecutors of Serbia, told the BBC.
"It is not clear what caused VJT's announcement because there were no criticisms against him, i.e. why they announced now, and before they were not inclined to communicate with the public", he adds.
Dragana Boljević, honorary president of the Association of Judges of Serbia, says that she has not encountered such a situation during her 40 years of working in the judiciary.
"Until now, it has not happened that a state body, especially a party to the proceedings, publishes a statement, from which it would appear that it is very upset that it cannot finish its work, and then accuses another state body, that is, the court, for that," states Boljević.
Such announcements undermine people's already weak trust in the judiciary, he adds.
What does the prosecution say, and what does the court say?
The higher public prosecutor's office announced that in mid-April 2025, it began supplementing the investigation in the case of the fall of the canopy, according to the court order.
Two months later, news arrives from the prosecutor's office that the supplementary investigation has been terminated as the defense attorneys have proposed to extract some evidence, without providing details.
The defense attorneys also requested that "certain evidentiary actions be undertaken that the prosecution previously refused, considering them superfluous."
The High Court has not yet decided on these defense proposals, the prosecution claims.
"The Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Novi Sad is therefore currently unable to complete the investigation and bring charges against the persons responsible for the tragic event," reads the statement published on June 18, 2025.
A day later, the High Court rejects the "incorrect conclusions of the public that the court is obstructing the conduct of the investigation".
"We believe that such announcements are aimed at undermining citizens' trust in the work of the High Court in Novi Sad," the announcement reads.
Thirteen suspects have a large number of defense attorneys and each of them has submitted a large number of requests and proposals on which the court decides, the statement explains.
The disturbance was also represented by the "illegal blockade for a full two weeks" which made work impossible, according to the court.
The court and prosecutor's office buildings in Novi Sad were blocked several times in the past months, during protests demanding responsibility for the fall of the canopy, as well as the release of activists suspected of various crimes directed against the government.
Pressure on the prosecution and the court
The last exchange of statements "is the result of great pressure on both the prosecution and the court", says Dragana Boljević.
"There was also political pressure, but this time there was greater and unprecedented pressure from the disaffected, especially those who blocked the buildings of judicial institutions in Novi Sad," she points out.
The public's interest in the course of the proceedings is justified, but an adequate response is "as transparent as possible within the limits of what is allowed" by the prosecution and the court, Boljević assesses.
"The higher public prosecutor's office in Novi Sad worked very intensively from the first day, as can be seen from the published documents and expert reports. But it did not communicate with the public, who mostly just want to know what the prosecutor's office is doing, in which direction it is going, when it expects to finish its work," he says.
Public pressure did exist, "but it was caused by the lack of information and the closedness of the prosecution and the court", assesses Lazić.
Source: BBC in Serbian
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