Results of the elections in the High Council of the Prosecutor's Office can be interpreted in two ways. First, electricity won Zagorke Dolovac, which for a decade and a half was synonymous with non-functioning institutions. So, nothing epochal and nothing important. It is possible that somehow and somewhere Dolovac and the executive power will come to an agreement again, and then - we were whitewashed for nothing!
It is a pessimistic version, characteristic of anemic societies, which have been eating junk food for decades.
Optimistic reads: Vučić and his man for special judicial operations Nenad Stefanovic, the so-called prosecutor, the guys from the bottom of the bucket, experienced a huge defeat. Despite the secret services working in three shifts, pressuring, threatening and blackmailing, the uncle-prosecutors failed to defeat the "ordinary prosecutors".
This is an important defeat on a symbolic level: one institution defended itself and showed that Vučić's power is thinner than it is thought, that its greatest strength - as it happens with the secret services - is in the reputation of great power.
The choice wasn't that difficult.
It can also be said that one profession won and set an example for other guilds. Therefore, if you are a prosecutor or a judge who works by order of the government, under the pressure of censorship and self-censorship - especially if you have a cancerous-Shalabeiser regime like this one above you - you are stepping on your own knowledge and experience, on everything you have learned, on all those who have developed legal science over the millennia. It's like being a surgeon, and instead of saving people's lives, you cut them to pieces on the operating table with a chainsaw. This question applies to all professions: will they manage to put the public good above their petty interests and fears?
It is true that we once again found ourselves faced with a choice "between two evils". Many were confused by the fact that now Dolovac suddenly found herself on the other side of history, changed her place on the stand. It is understandable that they could hardly move past the immediate past and support the one against whom they fought for so long. But fate plays its part sometimes, that's how it happens.
However, the choice was not that difficult. On the one hand, you have those who dared to press charges against the ministers, who are exposed to the volley of fire of the regime and its pit-bull media, and on the other - the executive power whose goal is to completely subdue the judiciary, with the ultimate goal of turning the authoritarian-hybrid state into a totalitarian dictatorship.
Because that's what it's about now, about the government at all levels, in all areas, trying to crush any resistance, and even to remove obedient people who are not ready to "shoot the meat".
The essence lies in the nuances.
In general, we will have to get used to choosing "between two evils" and to distinguish the nuances. I mean this more conscious part of society. Many, for example, refused to support the "lesser evil" in 2012 - Boris Tadić, so here we are stuck in the hole of space, out of our minds, robbed, depressed, sickly, nothing. We were waiting for the prince on the white horse.
And then, when something closest to a fairy tale appeared, the students - we found thousands of faults with them too. On the other hand, 14 and a half years ago, they weren't people we didn't know, but known kleptomaniacs with bloody hands up to their shoulders. It's like choosing to be wounded or "killed". And you choose the latter.
It's Dolovac's turn.
Now, this small or big victory in VST is one small step, symbolically important, we would say. For example, the blocked election of prosecutors at lower levels will be facilitated, the work of the prosecutor's office will be unblocked (the government prevented elections), which is not unimportant. It will be possible to disrupt the government's plans, which aimed to replace Dolovac with Stefanović, who would then be given unprecedented powers. The government will continue to press, no doubt about that. Anything will happen in this fight. It is to be hoped that those who won won't give in, when they haven't so far.
This kind of HST will bother the authorities, but the EU and even the USA will bother if the HST does not work exclusively on the basis of the Constitution and the law. Those countries are very sensitive to the state of justice in neighboring countries, even more than to media freedom. Namely, crime is cross-border, so a judiciary that would be under the full control of a party that is a branch of organized crime, not only domestic, could threaten them as well.
Dolovac and his team received the support of a part of the public, who received a lot of criticism because of that, and had to swallow a few frogs. They received support and professions. Now it would be their turn to justify that trust. We are watching you, Zagorka! You are on the move!
