Lawyer Zdenko Tomanović started his career in 1980 in the judiciary. He was one of the founders of the Association of Judges of Belgrade, the first organization of judges who advocated for the independence of the judiciary. At the end of 1993, he left the court because of the discrepancy between reality and his view of the place and role of a judge in society, and since 1994 he has been practicing law. Over 30 years of legal work has created an archive of his cases of over 2,5 million pages from a wide variety of legal fields. The archive contains the names of clients from the world of business and journalism, culture and sports, underground and politics, and many other activities. They are so different that their only common point is the same lawyer.
A public debate on amendments to the Criminal Code is underway. Are we actually attending the discussion or filling out the form?
There is no argument when you call criticism of the draft law manipulations and politics. On the website of the Ministry of Justice, you first have an invitation to a public debate, and then a statement by the Minister of Justice that criticism of the mentioned draft is "conscious manipulation and politicking aimed at deceiving citizens". You are calling for a public discussion in a country where there is no discussion, where the ruling structures reduce everything to self-satisfied flaunting with insults and disqualifications, unless we spread the official narratives.
Generally, what is the impression about the changes to the criminal code?
A collection of restrictions on the rights and freedoms of citizens, clumsy wording, clumsy solutions and disharmony with international standards.
Public attention is focused on proposals to punish the publication of material that advises the commission of a crime. Authorities say this is to protect society from content that could encourage criminal behavior...
Rather, that proposal looks like part of a project targeting freedom of speech and expression. First of all, there is a wide range of materials in which advice with the aim of committing criminal acts can be recognized. From books, articles, movies, video games, internet content to posts on social networks and other platforms or forums.
The reality of legal non-culture tells us that the interpretation - whether some of it constitutes giving advice for a criminal offense - will not be given by the formally competent but by the non-competent. Those who have a decisive influence on the work of the authorities. Therefore, those who until now valued citizens as terrorists, foreign agents, state enemies, traitors, instigators of murders, etc.
Creative works that may depict violence or crime, part of a narrative, educational material and research work on crime - all of this can be misused to be declared illegal advice, and solely for the purpose of limiting freedom of speech and artistic freedom. In general, the essence of the position of the political elite is as follows: Until now, we have been very tolerant in relation to freedom, and now we are going to take more radical measures and initiate criminal proceedings. In the end, they will arrest you because of the inscription on the T-shirt - You will not dig. Because they will interpret that the inscription on the T-shirt is an advice to destroy the constitutional order by blocking the roads.
You say that there is a project to target freedom of speech. However, the president of the Assembly says that the opposition is calling for civil war, that he wants to violently overthrow the government, showing the front pages of the papers "Today" i "Nova"?
It is precisely this rhetoric of anger from the top of the state that has elements of spreading panic and fear. The top of the government is spreading fear and panic about revolutions, about some "Beomajdan", about blood on the streets, in order to actually open up space for an attack on freedom of speech. They see a danger in Serbia from freedom of speech. They are trying to convince a free people to give up their freedoms and rights. Their campaign Let's close ranks now to defend Serbia it is intense because they want to convince people that it is justified to target citizens, develop insecurity and spread self-censorship. It spreads the fear that someone will pick you up at the airport, in a store, in the aisle, and that they could charge you with some crime. There is a criminal offense for causing panic, which reads: "Whoever causes panic by presenting or spreading false news or claims". Panic can be a sudden disturbance of citizens with a stronger intensity, caused by fear of making a claim that is false. The feeling of dissatisfaction, revolt due to the alleged introduction to civil war leads to loss of reason, fear of a possible attack in public places, inability to leave a familiar and safe environment, fear of loss of control, especially in those more sensitive to stressful situations. And the aforementioned assertion of the President of the Assembly should be considered by the prosecutor's office, because the government does not have the authority to push citizens into fear and panic, nor into insecurity. And insecurity has become part of people's daily lives, especially the fear that those in power are already losing control.
What else stands out as worrisome in the proposal to amend the Law?
A lot of things. For example, the criminal offense of Unauthorized Wiretapping and Recording (Article 143). Until now, a citizen has had the right to record a conversation intended for him, regardless of whether he participates in it or not. For example, a conversation in which someone threatens him or in which someone from the government asks him for a corrupt way to solve a problem. The changes prohibit any kind of recording of conversations, regardless of whether that conversation relates to you and whether it poses a security or legal threat to you. Let's recall certain published recordings or conversations in which the authorities offer to set up tenders or legalize facilities, build roads, threaten journalists, citizens, or the behavior of journalists on secret assignments in party call centers. Unauthorized recording of any conversation is now prohibited, and it is also punishable if you deliver such a conversation to someone uninvited, say journalists.
In such situations, the police and the prosecutor's office have always sought to determine who recorded the conversation without authorization?
But you could successfully defend that you recorded the conversation without the knowledge of the interlocutor or conversation participant because it was intended for you. It was often disputed whether such a recorded conversation could be used as evidence in court, but in practice there are court decisions that a video of a threat made with a mobile phone constitutes evidence that can be used in the proceedings, although there are different views.
For a long time, continuously, the top of the government insultingly evaluates or warns your clients Dragan Šolak and United Media with threatening rhetoric, as well as many journalists?
The top of the state expects the media to be the megaphone of the ruling party and promoters of the truth that the top of the government produces according to its needs. They want the media to be a filter between reality and the citizens, and that the beautified image mounted by the government is not distorted, because otherwise you are a traitor to your profession first, and then a hater of the state. They demand that the media does not deal with reality and truths, nor with the real possibilities of the development of society, but rather that the roots of useful lies and propaganda be planted. This is their concept of freedom of speech and the right to information. And the purpose of continuity in the production of fear, threats, insults and that ritual of humiliating the journalists of United Media and Dragan Šolak is the illegal control of freedom of speech and information. We are not only in the field of insults or threats. When you observe the rhetoric of some from the top of the government, you get the impression that they actually created a "Movement to fight against freedom of speech and the right to true information". They have developed an entire industry of production of falsehoods with the help of an axis consisting of: the regime organization of the authorities, certain media corporations and institutions that are in the function of increasing the power of the top of the government. In support of that "movement", numerous famous faces, from various social activities, show pretense as their second nature, slowly take off their masks and begin the function of regime actions. All of them recognized their advantages in working together with the regime. Because of this "dance" with the government, those supposedly objective people are horrified by moves to endanger freedom of speech and endanger journalists in America or Russia, and they watch all this live in our country and remain silent. A few weeks ago, members of the ruling party supported the EP resolution that the Assange case had an intimidating effect on journalists, and in their country they are encouraging exactly what was stated at that European meeting - that the truth is undermined, attacked with retaliation for telling the truth.
This is all happening in a country that is on the European road?
We are not on any path, we are in the hands of censorship. They implemented a massive system of speech control and via surrogates of censorship. The fight against freedom of speech and the right to true information has become a business financed by citizens' money in coordination with regime officials and groups for compiling lists and presenting virtual truth. They also set the truth as a commodity on which money is made - by limiting freedom of speech and silencing others. There is no other way than the power of the ruling structure, because life under the mask is still considered by many to be inevitable for survival. But it also entails responsibility. However, if you recognize the actions, that matrix of government, as bad, then it means that even what is apparently good is not what it seems.
Why do they fight so much against the truth?
The Achilles heel of the top government is the truth. The political elite believe that the measure of truth is in their power. And they want to impose their truth on us by persuasion, not by proof. They have developed all sophisticated strategies to convince us that they should be trusted. They solve all the propaganda dilemmas of how to convince citizens to believe what is not true. They unconstitutionally prevented the functioning of the Serbian state and Serbian institutions in the north of Kosovo and Metohija and unconstitutionally accepted the Franco-German agreement, and the direct consequence is not only the exit of Serbs from the courts, the prosecution and the police, but even today because of those unconstitutional promises, Serbs in Kosovo and Kosovo suffer terror and live in fear and move out. However, they convince us by wrapping the flag of Serbia around their shoulders that this is not true. So why do they fulfill their obligations if they haven't accepted them? They once promised Thaci and the Americans the abolition of the KLA war crimes court. This is the court that was formed on the basis of Dick Marty's investigation, which investigated the crimes of the KLA and the Yellow House. And they say we did not agree... So why are their interlocutors and friends from the top of the American administration promoting the existence of such an agreement today as their success? They promised to turn the General Staff into a hotel, but they convinced us that it was only in the consideration phase and that there was no agreement. So why is the US Senate now investigating the role of a small group from our government and some American powerful persons in connection with the General Staff project? They promised the West lithium and boron ore. For a long time, they convinced us that others had promised it and put an end to it, and today they are trying to overpower the people of Serbia and convince them that money will come with lithium and that money is a symbol of citizens' freedom. They celebrate Belgrade on the water, which sprouted from violence against the law in Savamala. That night, citizens called the police, who did not come, but excavators and people in ghost cars came, tying citizens to poles and demolishing other people's property. The ruling elite develops a mechanism to draw large numbers of people into the framework needed to produce their truth. Within this framework, no truth other than the official one must be supported on the public scene, and all other truths must remain limited to the non-public scene. Everything that breaks free and goes to the public must be trampled, soiled, belittled. In moments of uncovering big lies and deceptions, especially if you touch the zone between corruption and collaboration, the truth becomes the enemy of the state.
photo: marija janković...
You mentioned lithium, a few months ago, the information reached the public that Rio Tinto appealed to the Arbitration of the World Bank. Does this mean that Serbia has been sued or not??
On June 19, the Investment Arbitration Reporter portal published information that in the previous period the company Rio Tinto sent a "notice of request" to the Government of the Republic of Serbia, in connection with the "Jadar project". If this information is correct, at this moment it is premature to say whether this notification is a platform for already planned legal negotiations on this matter or really an introduction to arbitration or something else. It is important that the citizens said "You will not dig". It is the judgment of the people and no appeal is allowed. That public judgment "You will not dig" raises the moral capacity of the entire society. The people's decision - there will be no digging, is primarily of a moral and legal nature. They recognized that for the political elite a healthy Serbia is a propaganda concept, and for the citizens it is life. They recognized that private interest is imposed and promoted as the interest of the whole society, and that behind the glorification of foreign investment there is doubt about the symbiosis of interest between the authorities and investors. For the people of Serbia, moral and honest action has not gone out of fashion, and that is why this resistance to lithium and boron mining is the basis for a change to a better and healthier society.
The authorities said they were waiting for experts...
The authorities are now revealing the supposed experts, but they have forgotten that knowledge that does not serve the good and is contrary to morality cannot be trusted. The truth cannot now be produced with the help of the "knowledge" presented, because the people have recognized that these supposed experts are not guides to the truth but soldiers of a project that is not for the common good. Today, they would like to find elected experts, and they trampled on the profession when she said that state structures and security services participated in the production of drugs on Jovanjica, when she said that the General Staff should not be turned into a hotel, when she condemned the events in Savamala, when said that accepting the Franco-German agreement was unconstitutional…
One of the professors of constitutional law, guesting recently on TV with a national frequency, he attracted public attention when he said that he had not seen anywhere that the constitution recognizes the right to protest, regardless of the time, the city, the way... And that such a right was invented by some of our opposition members...
Our opposition did not invent that, but citizens of the world fought for that right a long time ago. That right of citizens to publicly express disagreement or a different opinion on the public stage has become a human right. The street is a public scene and a real one. What is allowed on the street is what is legitimate, natural and acceptable, logical and moral. It is legitimate to defend yourself against injustice. Public assembly as a basic democratic right can be sudden, in the form of demonstrations, protests, and the fierceness of resistance to the illegal actions of the authorities, i.e. injustice, depends on the extent of that injustice, because experts in law know about that old saying - "When the law ceases, tyranny arises ".
The dominance of the humiliation of the citizens breeds resentment, from which the need for the people to be the moral victor always develops. And morality in law is becoming louder in order to preserve the basic rights of citizens. That freedom in protests against pine and lithium mining is real, it represents the exercise of citizens' political freedom. They feel that they are responsible for the politics of their community and that is why support is needed.
The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, says that he will be in daily control of the correctness of digging, as well as his heads of institutions and that he will inform the citizens about any irregularity?
The president of the country does not need to be a policeman. We have police officers like Milenkovic, Mitić, Isakov, Vešović and the like. And as far as information is concerned, will the institutions inform us as they did about Jovanjica? Is it with the same attitude as the famous one that "a ton of marijuana is not much"? With the machinery involved in covering up Jovanjica and the subsequent retaliation against Milenkovic and Mitić?
We have information that inspector Slobodan Milenkovic appeared in the courthouse a few days ago, but that he quickly left her? Is it because of Jovanjica??
No, it's not because of Jovanjica, because he hasn't received a summons to testify yet. And of course, as soon as he receives the summons, he will come and inform the court and the citizens about the truth, because of which the ruling machinery called the inspectors "carriers of the coup". He was in court accompanied by SAJ, he responded to the invitation to be a witness in a civil proceeding. He then informed the judge about the latest complication of his security situation, and immediately after that conversation, Inspector Milenkovic informed the authorities in the police with information that increases his security vulnerability.
The previous high respect of the centers of power towards the persons identified by Milenkovic as operational bearers of activities that threaten the lives of him and Inspector Dušan Mitić, the inappropriately low intensity of engagement of the competent authorities and the consideration of the top police on changing the security for inspectors, favors the participants of evil who threaten their safety in order to take revenge for the case Jovanjica. The full truth about Jovanjica is pending, and the lives of Milenkovic and Mitić are in suspended suspense.
Your office also represents director Emir Kusturica, and you submitted a request for legal protection due to misuse of artificial intelligence on TV Pink. Such faithful video manipulation - and audio-the record is almost never seen in these areas. Although the public is already used to critics of powerful people close to the regime going through public retaliation, this kind of technological reckoning seems particularly frightening...
We filed a claim for falsifying and creating offensive synthesized audio and video using technology. The context illuminates the root of the attack on Kusturica. And that context is called - lithium. When he stated that he was against lithium mining, Kusturica did not side with the government or the opposition but with the people and said that it was a question of existence. And then the fierce defenders of reality in Serbia are encouraged. Reducing citizens' protests to the actions of foreign states, one politician calls him a Russian spy (which is why a lawsuit was filed for the criminal offense of insult). And on Kusturica's assessment of the so-called of pink Serbia received a stolen voice, stolen image, invented text and insults on the national frequency. It is much more than the misuse of technology. It is the theft of truth and identity, because instead of a true voice, true words, true person - you put a machine as a substitute for everything. And this would not be possible if the institutions were not intoxicated by the powers of those who send assessments every day that anyone who is against lithium mining is an opponent of the people and the common good. Of course, the additional issue of defending universal values also opens up here. Artists cannot prevent evil, but they can delegitimize, disfigure and dehumanize it. The ambassadors of cultural development should act in the direction of awakening the hope that it makes sense not to be captured by the ruling view of the world. And this means that traces of integrity cannot be lost in the labyrinths and structures of the dominant and wrong value system. Both culture and tradition are deformed if the policy is wrong.
In the press release, you stated that you expect the prosecution to respond. You really expect it?
Well, the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, on July 3 this year, issued the following statement: "Regarding the video that was published on the social network Facebook [...] in which the statement of the Prime Minister of the RS Miloš Vučević was created using artificial intelligence, the Special Department for high-tech crime of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade submitted a request to the police officers of the Service for Combating High-Tech Crime to collect the necessary information. The aforementioned request requested the removal of the account in question on the social network, with the prior collection of data about the account and its use from the service provider 'Meta Platforms'". Therefore, Kustirica is not only a citizen of the world but also of Serbia, and has the right to equal treatment before the law.
Also due to misuse of artificial intelligence, and also against Pink, Your office also initiated proceedings in the case of Dragan Đilas more than a year ago. What happens to that item?
The court nevertheless, but only after a year, passed a temporary measure and forbade Željko Mitrović from further broadcasting the illegal processing of Dragan Đilas's voice and image. Illegal use of artificial intelligence, better known as "dipfake" (deepfake) is socially dangerous not only for human rights, but also when there is a "disinformation campaign" against politicians. Even Europol in a report analyzed the criminal law and security danger of such forgeries and indicated that "an operation that deliberately spreads false information to mislead" dangerous because "influence on elections", and he warned of an immeasurable impact on the political process if this is the case "manipulations successfully deceive a large part of the population". In the case of the president of the largest opposition party, the elections announced before then probably had in mind that, according to international sources, more than 80 percent of the population had not heard of the creation of such edited and fake recordings. There is no doubt that such a recording is misleading. Unfortunately, Serbia has become an example of what artificial intelligence abuse looks like when it falls into the wrong hands, in an otherwise vulgarized public space. Of course, in the changes to the criminal law, they completely ignored the social danger of deepfakes.
In your public appearances, you always emphasize the rule of law. Do all important state issues begin and end on that topic?
There are many answers in the rule of law. We are losing part of the territory, the equality of citizens, the necessary level of social awareness, legal awareness and a whole series of elements of the value system that is necessary for our society. And today, unfortunately, institutions have become a means to increase the power of those who are above and beyond the laws and institutions, and who use laws, law, institutions and alleged experts as a means to increase their power, and then one enters the zone without control . Institutions calculate with the tension between that power, individual rights and social interest, because the holders of power also supervise laws, as controllers and correctors of the work of institutions. When you are a lawyer, the relationship between the state and society towards the individual is best felt in the practical application of law. And an individual is free only if he exercises his rights always, otherwise his freedom is denied.
photo: marija janković...
The planned newspaper will not bypass the legal profession either. Namely, changes are also proposed regarding the protection of lawyer's secrecy?
Article 141 of the Criminal Code was completely inappropriately amended, because until now "unauthorized disclosure of a secret learned in the performance of a lawyer's summons" was prohibited, and now the term "secret" is retained in the title, but only the disclosure of information about personal or family life is prohibited. Therefore, lawyers will not have a criminal prohibition to keep secrets related to their client's professional life or various spheres of professional activity. That relationship of confidentiality between the client and the lawyer will remain only at the level of professional ethics or morals of the lawyer, but not at the level of criminal protection. In a country where many lawyers are complicit in the value decay of society, where many lawyers admire the political elite who long ago separated from morality and act unconstitutionally, lawyer secrecy must be complete and protected under criminal law. Lawyers are the guardians of their clients' secrets, both personal and professional, and must remain so.
