With the former president of the Supreme Court of Serbia, Vida Petrović Škero, recently retired, but active in the public and professional associations, we begin the conversation about the question of responsibility for the lack of an answer as to who demolished Savamala in April this year, why the preliminary investigation procedures are taking so long, why we do not know whether any proceedings were initiated at all. She says that it is not clear to anyone how we do not have answers to all these questions, even though they are "obviously legally problematic" questions and answers. Not only in the case of Savamala, but also in the cases of the helicopter crash (procedure suspended, no one is guilty!), and the murder of the guardsman at Topcider, about which the prosecution and at least two political authorities are silent, while the judiciary, the judicial authorities, to be more precise, are accused of everything.
"If the state does not give a requested answer, it is expected that the judiciary will answer it." It must also respond to all that was destroyed in the process; some things cannot be fixed. We lost seven lives and we cannot fix that, but we can determine who caused those seven lives to be lost in a helicopter crash, we must determine if it is possible for a demolition to occur in the center of Belgrade during the night, without anyone knowing, no way, or on whose order, so that it is not known whether that order existed at all, and if so, why it was done at night and whether it is possible that in one country someone cannot find out who was riding - not a child's bike - rather than bulldozers that they still don't drive themselves, they are driven by people, so who gave those people the order? All this is terrible for the country and I am very afraid that we cannot talk about any progress in the sense of what is required of us by Chapter 23, to create a better judiciary and restore citizens' trust in it. There is no trust if we cannot answer such tasks.
The judiciary is independent in its decisions and judgments, but it is very dependent on what the law is, on how, who and where it works and how freely it can think. And of course, what the citizens do not understand enough: when they say the judiciary, then they mean the judiciary, and the judiciary includes the prosecution, which must find out who is the perpetrator of the crime, conduct an investigation and file an indictment in order for the case to reach the judge. judge. If we don't have all that, then we are not talking about the judiciary, but those who know it - know it and do nothing to change it, but quite calmly allow that independent branch of government, but only in terms of decision-making, to suffer the consequences of not knowing more it's been a year since those seven people died and for more than six months we don't know who demolished it at night in Savamala. All we know so far is what the media published and what the ombudsman and the citizen's protector did, but we still don't know who, or on whose orders...
Everyone will say: the judiciary is not working, but the problem is that the judiciary, at least partly, is not working because it has not received the case."
"WEATHER": Unlike this relatively "fresh" case, the case of the murder of two guardsmen on Topcider is still in the preliminary investigation phase...
VIDA PETROVIĆ SKERO: The case of Topchider is, it seems to me, of a completely different kind. There we have two dead young men who were serving their military service and the investigation that started from the Military Court and - as far as I know about it, and I was in a situation to receive the parents of those young guys and read a lot about that case - the fact that sometimes so much time is lost because no matter what is done, no one has faith in what was done. If all the evidence of the investigation is collected, if everything is combed through (obviously poor quality), and today everyone already has their own theory, it is so late that if this belated justice ever comes, it will not be any satisfaction and no sanction for that murder. because it doesn't make sense anymore. If there is no sense, then we have no justice, and if there is no justice, it means that the judiciary is not functioning.
It is the same with the demolition in Herzegovina: the more time passes, the less chance we will ever know the truth. Isn't that exactly the government's intention??
It looks more and more like that to me. We still don't know if those buildings were legal or not, but they were demolished in an illegal way. Is it possible for a building to collapse in a city at night, with masked people, without a solution? That's a problem, and an even bigger problem is how can we not determine how it happened and who did it? This means that there is no rule of law and that every citizen can expect, whether because he and his property are the target of someone's wishes, that someone will come tomorrow night to evict him, that he can demolish his house, break into his apartment, takes something from him, without it being obvious that it is not an ordinary thief from the street, and that nothing happens! You understand that someone has to stand in line and wait for their license for months and years and pay for it all, and that someone can go out with a bulldozer and cover their face while doing so, as if we are in some absolutely wild country, and knock down half streets without any consequences.
Even in the "countryman case", where there were cameras that recorded everything, it took time, but a trial was reached. It's unbelievable that we can't do that even in the case of demolition, that we can't use the cameras from the streets of Belgrade to determine who was driving the excavators, what is the registration number of those excavators... Unbelievable, bulldozers are driving around the city, no one hears them, the police are not reacting even now we have a big problem: who will do that in the prosecutor's office and is it so terrible if the name of the prosecutor is disclosed. My view of the public: it must familiarize itself with the facts that every citizen must know about their country and the happenings in it. He doesn't need to know the details of the investigation, that part is clear, there is only party public in it and I don't think anyone is asking for that, but he needs to know if the procedure was initiated and if something was done after all these months that have passed since then , because otherwise really in this city, and in Serbia, no one has confidence in the judiciary. Everyone will say that the judges are to blame, but the judiciary does not function because the judicial power does not function: we do not even have an indictment. Why do we lose trust? Because no one has done anything yet about who's driving the bulldozer that's tearing down the city at night, with no solution. How can someone demolish in the middle of the capital city without the decision of the competent authority? There is no rule of law there, it will not be built by someone who demolishes the city at night.
The police do not act according to the orders of the prosecution, but that instead of publicly asking the police to do their job attacks the media that are looking for answers to the question of who did the demolition on the post-election night. What does this fact tell us??
Throughout our justice system - and the prosecution is a part of it - something strange is happening. In certain situations, we allow various participants in the procedure to lead the procedure, and not the state body that is authorized to do so by law and the Constitution. Quite often, the judge will tell us that he cannot complete a property dispute because once the lawyer sent him a certificate that he was ill, the second time he did not come, and subsequently he justified his absence, so he submitted some motion and thus the hearings are scheduled for six months . When asked who is to blame, everyone will say the court, not the parties who abuse their powers, but the court must not allow that. The court is closer to me, because I was a judge, but the same is the case with the prosecution: the prosecutor cannot justify not receiving the requested answers for months, at some point he must take certain measures, which are provided for by law.
We need to return to the basic principles of the rule of law: democracy, protection of human rights and the public that ensures democracy. In a democratic society, it cannot happen that someone demolishes someone's property, even if it was built illegally, without the decision of the competent authority. Someone's rights have been violated, and we don't have the public even when it was demolished, and not even for months after. No one has the right to accuse the media of pressuring the authorities to do their job. The job of the media is to ensure the public, regardless of the fact that in our country almost everything can be called yellow press. No one criticizes it much, neither the professional public, nor politicians, but when the question is raised and a debate is opened about the fact that no one knows yet whose bulldozers they are and why they put pupae, if everything is in order, then it is normal to ask the question of whether it is a rule of law, whether it functions or not and whether we even have a rule of law without those three elements.
Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić said that they are to blame for everything "complete idiots" but so that he too only during the day personally drove the demolition excavator. What does that tell the authorities??
I think that is a statement that should not come from the person who is supposed to organize the rule of law in a country. Someone who is designated for that by law, based on the decision of the competent authority, could demolish something. Anything beyond that is not right. When one says so in an official address to the nation, it is an overstepping of everything that should represent the function of a man who should take care of the rule of law and the rule of law.
Savamala is very close to the exclusive restaurant within the project "Belgrade on water" which is presented as an information stand temporary, as well as the restaurant which ordinary mortals can hardly reach, like Olja Bećković, which is disabled from recording the show nearby, but also an activist of the action "Ne davimo Belgrade". What does that tell you about the rule of law in Serbia??
I'm not exclusive enough for that bar, I guess, so I haven't been there, but if it's open in accordance with the urban plan, then I'd say, well, everything's fine. If, again, it is a temporary facility with or without a restaurant permit, I would again have a question: who is the one who gets a permit for a temporary facility that is a service activity, I mean a bar, and that is not of general interest? I could agree that a large parking lot in the center of Belgrade, which is cramped with parking space, might be of interest to the city, but I don't believe that the cafe is of general interest; it is for the owner of that bar and those who come exclusively to it. I don't believe that one can be so easily replaced by the other - the general interest and the interest of the owner of the tavern - and this again leads to the question of who and why demolished all that, whether it is all in the service of the implementation of the urban plan and the general interest, or someone's private interest and the will. Expulsion of citizens, including journalists, should not happen, because if it is an information stand, it must be possible to approach it and ask for some information. Even in front of the Government, which is of strategic importance, filming is allowed...
It is a fact that many laws are passed by urgent procedure, that many provisions under various laws are opposed to each other. How does this affect the judiciary?, to the judges who apply those laws, on citizens who would by the letter of the law had to know the regulations?
It is very difficult to follow. Such turbulence of the law is a terrible problem. The judiciary is independent, it goes through the court decision, but it depends very much on what the decision will be in terms of the application of the law. A judge must absolutely know the law in order to be able to determine what constitutes justice, what constitutes law and find proportionality between them, in order to ensure human rights. In a situation where judges have thousands of cases, where, for example, the enforcement law is changing, it takes an awful lot of time for the judge, the lawyer and the legal service, anyone who practices law, to know which law to apply, with a high possibility of error. In the judiciary, there is a major problem of how we will interpret the transitional provisions, because they have a different validity period compared to the whole law, because it creates a great legal uncertainty as soon as we have different ways to interpret.
I have long been under the impression that, when there is a change of government, not only the Minister of Justice, because each department proposes its own laws (finance, culture, etc.), it all boils down to the fact that each department will propose some new law, regardless of all that which has been done before. That new law can be perfect, it can bring all new and excellent changes, but if the budget necessary for the law to be implemented is not introduced, everything remains only on paper. To us, almost every law, especially those that are passed by urgent procedure, says that it does not require special funds, which is impossible. Just imagine how much time it takes to read the law, how much it takes to introduce new formalities and abolish old ones...
If you, as a citizen, try to legalize your facility today, you will find it difficult to find your way around all the laws that have been passed recently, according to which legalization is done in completely different ways. What about those who submitted a request but did not have complete documentation, which authority to turn to, that is all legal you are gibberish in which people find it difficult to navigate. A citizen must understand what his rights are, even though he will probably hire a lawyer for his specific procedure: he must understand, and it is very difficult to know that when you know that even those at the counter who receive citizens' requests are not sure, for example about tax issues, in the answers to the citizens, which shows that people who only deal with it concretely are not able to grasp all the legal changes. We bring something new because the old one is not valid, but the problem is that even in that period when it was not valid, the old law is valid for that case. In addition to the problem of passing laws by urgent procedure, we now increasingly have the problem of retroactivity, which neither according to our legislation, nor according to generally accepted legal rules, must happen and which becomes a big problem in the protection of citizens' rights.
One day we have to stop with that, one day we have to say that civil and criminal procedural laws are not changed for three or six months, but to create the best possible expert teams, working groups for changing those laws, which will work for two or three years and to find the best solutions, and to make laws that will not carry such omissions. There is no perfect law, but let's make laws that at least will not collide, sometimes unintentionally, because they are made in such incomprehensible short terms. It's like if someone in the state hospitals said that we have a big backlog in cataract surgeries and that we need to reduce the waiting lists, so we will reduce the protocol and we will no longer operate cataracts, with preparation and everything, an hour and a half, but we will cut it in half hour - so what happens! All of this can be reflected in the judiciary: no one asks if we have reached rights and justice for the citizens, it is important that we have mastered the numbers, and we keep going round and round about it, we have been talking about it for a good 15 to 20 years.
We were given the opportunity to request a trial before the domestic courts within a reasonable time, what gives (fake?) hope to the citizens that they will finally come, after many years, to justice?
It is a great thing that this country realized that this is a problem and that we got a law that will regulate it, so that not all our cases go to Strasbourg. However, it is not calculated how many cases will be in the court with the same number of judges, if we know that we have thousands and thousands of old cases, and that at least 50 or even 80 percent of those old cases will enter the new score those judges when they calculate a reasonable term. We put that in the jurisdiction of the president of the court, who, of course, formed new chambers in which, of course, the same judges are present, because no one but judges can do that. Again, we made a simulation of the solution to the problem: we got there to some extent, but we did not determine how much funds we need, whether we will increase the number of advisors for one judge, or we will introduce new judges, or we will find some other solution. This way, we have a problem solved on paper, but in fact we don't have it.
This can be seen in this story about awards to judges who solved the largest number of old cases. It was reported in the media that those judges were rewarded - the citizens' comments were incredible: we will not have justice until now, because the judges will no longer judge, but will judge. Then it turns out that the award is not received by the judges, but by the court, and carelessly released information led to the creation of a public opinion that has even less confidence in the work of the court, that is, the judge who at that moment solves their legal problem. That's not how we solve the problem because the party guided by this will say: I was right because the judge got an award because he ruled against me, and further, that the whole story about solving old cases is to get a monetary award. It had to be approached in a different way, because a single careless move like this gave the citizens an image in which it will be difficult to change the image in which they believe that judges have been corrupted by the state and that it gives them money to complete the case, and not to find law and justice for the citizens . These are the great dangers of those moves, I assume made with the best intentions, in a process in which our citizens are constantly losing confidence in the judiciary.
Where are we, in all of this, with the judicial reform started in 2009. years, which continues unsuccessfully with repairs, visible or not until today?
The reform was unsuccessful because it was not thought through enough, because there was no good analysis and planning. About twenty years ago, America did a reform that lasted 12 years, but they had the budget, the capacities. They did it step by step, thinking of the citizens as well, because it is a very sensitive system. Our reform was implemented, maybe not overnight, but certainly with an axe. The results were disastrous, those who remained in the system were angry about many things, because they work a lot and have less pay than those who were dismissed and paid compared to the last salary; those who didn't work were angry because they were dismissed, in most cases rightfully so, they came back angry and resentful... Now we have the fix of the reform, and where are we now? With some new responsibilities, we have reached, possibly, some worse positions. Some things may be a little better, for example the attempt to introduce computerization and to make something faster is good, but it is not finished. Many segments of the system do not work, which is the eternal pain of our system: we started, but we are not finished.
For years, we have been arguing about the composition of the High Council of the Judiciary, in which they are, with the judges, and representatives of the executive branch.
I have my own personal opinion about the Supreme Court: I think that the presence of one man from the executive branch, one from the legislature, one professor and a lawyer is no problem. The Council has 11 members, seven of whom are judges: they are the majority that can make any decision legally, fairly and equitably. And the four who are not judges, it should be known, have behind them their legal background and profession, and I have no problem with them being in this body. The problem is how they are chosen, especially by the courts, and the parliament can accept it or not. Professors can propose whoever they want, but the parliament will choose: there is a problem, who chooses these people in the end - if they are of good quality, it is completely irrelevant who chooses them in the end.
Let's not forget that in many places there are kings, presidents or ministers in the councils and that these councils function decently. It is up to the representatives of the judiciary whether they have their independence and strength to make decisions that are legal and good for the judiciary. According to past experience, for all that was big, and we are talking about reforms, the Supreme Court did not express itself. Now there followed a relatively peaceful period in which I cannot judge whether he had strength, but I have to believe that he will have not only strength, but also quality and independence, that they do not fulfill anyone's wishes, but think about what is good for the judiciary. They have to think about this when they raise their hand for any decision, and at the same time they should strive for as much publicity as possible in their work.
It is not a problem for the HJC to have a minister in it, although in our mentality the main authority is ministerial, it is also a problem for our Government. But if you have four against seven people judges, then the queen can be the president of the council, as she is in some countries. Both the professor and the minister and the judge in the HJC today are elected by political will, but I want to believe that not every minister will be someone's political will, but that they will express their will to serve only the judiciary, not politics.
How do you see the fact that a young person was again elected as the Minister of Justice, Nela Kuburovic, who has no real judicial experience, nor her predecessors Nikola Selaković and Snežana Malović?
Colleague Kuburović was elected because she worked for years in the Ministry through the Supreme Court. I want to believe that maybe she can do more because, although she did not work in court, she dealt with justice through the Supreme Court and that she can understand the importance of certain decisions, which is really needed at this moment. We will see, she does not have direct judicial experience, but compared to her predecessors, she has more experience. In relation to the former minister, but also the former minister.
