The verdict in the case of the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija was announced on February 2 this year, almost ten months after it was passed, and as told to Danas in the Court of Appeal in Belgrade, this was done because only then was the written verdict dispatched from the court.
"Until then, the proceedings were in private and no one, except for the members of the panel, knew the contents of the rendered verdict," the Appellate Court states.
Dispatch of the judgment implies that the written judgment is sent from the registry office to the first-instance court panel, which then sends it on to the parties in the proceedings.
Apart from the actual content of the verdict, which acquitted the accused of the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija, controversy was also caused by the deadline that the court needed to announce the verdict.
As stated on the website of the Court of Appeal, the panel of the Special Department for Organized Crime rendered its verdict on April 19, 2023, after the hearing. The announcement of the verdict was published on the court's website on February 2, 2024. The Appellate Court did not explain why it took ten months for the verdict to be sent to the first instance court.
Several judges with whom Danas spoke described the passage of time between making a decision and dispatching the verdict as "unusually long" with the remark that they could not know the details of why it took so long.
They added that there is nothing illegal in such a long deadline, but that in order to extend the deadline for drafting the verdict, it is necessary to ask for the permission of the president of the court.
