...Mirko Ilic
Since none of the called state officials responded to the call Serbian Bar Association to repeal the changes judicial of the law, a three-day suspension of the work of lawyers on the territory of the Republic of Serbia was determined, as promised earlier. In the explanation of the decision on the suspension, it was stated that the entry into force of the adopted amendments to judicial laws represents "a threat to the basic human rights and freedoms of all citizens of the Republic of Serbia, which are guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia." In addition to this, the Serbian legal profession complained that, as stated, the amendments to the law were adopted outside the legal procedure, in gross violation of the principles of the rule of law, without adequate public discussion and the participation of representatives of the profession.
Suspension of work a lawyer it ended after three days. It turned out that other judicial professions were not bothered by the so-called Mrdić laws to the extent that they bothered the legal profession. Admittedly, she too for only three days. Since the vast majority of judges and prosecutors publicly did not object to the changes to the judicial laws, that the legal profession, despite the fact that "the entry into force of the adopted changes to the judicial laws represents a threat to the basic human rights and freedoms of all citizens of the Republic of Serbia, which are guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia", continued to work unhindered after three days. It seems that "three days were enough" for all that.
Well, at least it "tried". What else happened on the third day after the end of the suspension? In addition to the suspended suspension, on February 25, 2026, the long-announced repeated elections of representatives of senior and basic public prosecutors in the High Council of Prosecutors were held. The elections for the representatives of basic public prosecutors were repeated at the Kragujevac and Niš appeals, and for the representatives of senior public prosecutors at the Novi Sad and Nis appeals.
The repeated voting resulted in the current of "prosecutors who want to work" being stronger for two more members in the High Council of Prosecutors - one at the level of basic and one at the level of higher prosecutor's offices. How? When it comes to the representatives of the main prosecutors, the almost perfectly matched distribution of votes led to the difference between the two candidates who are acceptable to the government being only a few votes and both of them finding a place in the High Council of the Prosecutor's Office. As for the election for the representative of senior prosecutors, the electoral unit "Kragujevac 2" brought nine more votes to the candidate "prosecutors who want to work" compared to the December elections, which was enough for victory.
How did the different election results come about? True, the right to vote is free, everyone votes according to their conscience and from election to election everyone has the right to change or not change their decision. In this particular case, it turned out that it took less than two months to change the determination of a sufficient number of prosecutors in Central Serbia to the extent that it would lead to a different election outcome.
The question arises, what happened in Šumadija in the period between the initial and repeated elections, that is, on December 26 and February 25? We received the answer to the question in a live broadcast from small screens, already at the Fifth Extraordinary Session of the High Council of the Prosecution on February 27. The prosecutor of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Kruševac, Miodrag Surla, in a direct involvement, disclosed as the complainant that he came to know that on the premises of the Security Information Agency, sometime around January 19 or 20, a meeting was held between the top of the state security, on the one hand, and a certain number of chief public prosecutors from the area of the Kragujevac appeal, led by the chief prosecutor of the Appellate Public Prosecutor's Office in Kragujevac, Milijana Dončić. What was the topic of the meeting? Prosecutor Surla, whose name is already being passed around the prosecution corridors with disbelief and admiration, said that he has knowledge that the chief public prosecutors present at the aforementioned meeting were instructed to hold collegiums upon their return to their prosecutor's offices where they would ask their prosecutors to vote in a certain way, and noted that such collegiums were held. All this was confirmed at the session of the prosecutor's council by the Supreme Public Prosecutor Zagorka Dolovac, who stated that she was not informed about it by the chief prosecutor of the Appellate Public Prosecutor's Office in Kragujevac until two days before the session of the High Prosecutor's Council, when she asked about it directly. At the same time, the Supreme Public Prosecutor stated that everyone's responsibility in connection with the aforementioned, including criminal responsibility, will be reviewed.
Anyone who has ever stopped by the prosecutor's office, at least to get out of the rain, knows that such meetings are always asked for consent or at least reported to the immediately superior public prosecutor. The only superior to the chief prosecutor of the Appellate Public Prosecutor's Office in Kragujevac is the supreme public prosecutor. Why did the chief prosecutor of the Kragujevac appeal bring almost all of her subordinate "chiefs" of the prosecutor's offices "to the Epiphany" to the Security Information Agency, without notifying her immediate superior in advance? Why was she silent until she was asked about it directly? If so, what overpowered the hierarchical prosecutorial consciousness acquired over many years? Probably the same as the change in the voting orientation of the prosecutors. One of the oldest fears of Serbs, if we exclude drafts.
In any case, the High Prosecution Council did not have the required majority to decide on the objections of the prosecutors, which according to the current law means that the decisions have not been made and that the Constitutional Court, which has 72 hours to do so, should decide on the appeals they stated. It seems that the legislator was guided by the popular "three days is enough" when setting the deadlines.
The latest information says that the Public Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime has been informed about everything, which will be in this composition until next Tuesday. Namely, the Law on Amendments to the Law on Public Prosecution, as one of the "Mrdić Laws", in Independent Article 12 prescribes that the temporary referral of referred prosecutors will cease on March 10, 2026. Numerically, it is ironic that it is member number 12 who will cause this year's March 12th (for the uninitiated: the anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Dr. Zoran Djindjic) to dawn with a decimated Public Prosecutor's Office for organized crime. The described irony has the capacity to rise to the level of sarcasm if the subsequent referrals to the special prosecutor's office include any of the names mentioned. If there is talk of March 12 at all, it won't be long, and already on March 15 it will be one year since one of the biggest gatherings in Belgrade's recent history. Maybe all this is happening to us because we have always had "three days enough" for everything!
The author is a lawyer in Belgrade
