Photo: Marko Dragoslavić/FoNetEvery country has corruption, only in Serbia the corrupt have a state. Simply - systemic clientelism forms the foundations and supporting walls of the current government. How then can the judiciary be beyond those clutches
Violent public reaction to the cases of prosecutors Bojana Savović and Jasmine Paunović is no surprise. It is simply about the primordial need of the people for justice.
Corruption related to EPS is a drop in the bucket of thievery. Belgrade on the water, Krušik, Jovanjica, "Aunt from Canada", Corridors, Customs, illegal construction, purchased diplomas and doctorates are just some of the countless affairs without an epilogue and court rulings. The new progressive class looks at them with a crooked sombrero - just yesterday the owners of small shops with four tables and obscure exchange offices, today they are untouchable investors and owners of everything.
What does the judiciary do? It is busy, dear reader, over the head. As criminal offenses for high level corruption have not yet been abolished, prosecutors and judges struggle all day long to find ways and reasons not to see what is in front of everyone's eyes. If, sometimes, someone from the caste in power likes the court, it is not the end of the world - every process will be meaningless and sabotaged to the point of disgust. Does anyone else remember Jovanjica - for example? And if the prosecutors and judges really try to do their job, there are harassment, transfers, problems... Every country has corruption, only in Serbia the corrupt have a state.
The case against the six for stealing seven and a half million euros from EPS, initiated by plaintiffs Savović and Paunović, is only a scratch on the surface. The suspects are certainly not small fish, but they are not white sharks either. Then why is the regime undermining that criminal case by transferring the prosecutors? Why does Senior Public Prosecutor in Belgrade Nenad Stefanović terrorize his colleagues and transfer Savović and Paunović? At the end of the day, isn't such a process suitable for the authorities as a backdrop in a play for the public under the name "Fight against corruption"?
Well, it doesn't fit at all. The suspected six, namely, are not a group of independent outlaws. On the contrary, they are part of a chain that extends from the bottom to the very top of the government. Who knows where a fair and legal process against them would have led, to whom it would have served and how many progressive leaders it would have endangered. In short: any even more serious corruption investigation threatens to collapse the supporting walls of the current government, that is, its political power that comes from systemic clientelism. That's why ministers, directors and state officials are arrested in all the surrounding countries - sometimes more, sometimes less - except in Serbia.
What will happen to the rebellion in the prosecutor's offices regarding the prosecutors Savović i
Paunović is ungrateful to forecast. As things stand, there is not much reason for optimism. And yet - you have to start somewhere.
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A black picture and the breakdown of the rule of law subscribeThe archive of the weekly Vreme includes all our digital editions, since the very beginning of our work. All issues can be downloaded in PDF format, by purchasing the digital edition, or you can read all available texts from the selected issue.
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Zagorka Dolovac and Nenad Stefanović to resign, and prosecutors Bojana Savović and Jasmina Paunović to return to the EPS corruption case
After the arrest of the corruption suspects in the EPS, the two deputy prosecutors who worked on the case were dismissed. The obscure explanation of the head of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, Nenad Stefanović, immediately raised the suspicion that something was seriously wrong.
Deputy Prosecutor Jasmina Paunović warned on the Viber group of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade that the request of the head of the Public Prosecutor's Office Nenad Stefanović is that his deputies must ask him for approval for every filing of a criminal report, writing a report or contacting the police - a violation of the law and the Constitution. After that, she was expelled from the department together with her colleague Bojana Savović, who had issued an order for the arrest of six suspects for corrupt activities in the EPS. It must be that she did not ask for a permit, adhering to the law that guarantees deputies freedom of work
The silence in the Serbian Progressive Party about the events in the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade was broken on Tuesday evening by the most prominent of all SNS lawyers - the president himself - with the statement that there is a "political hunt" against the head of the VJT, Nenad Stefanović. Thus, Aleksandar Vučić did not protect VJT, nor the prosecution system itself, he gave a signal to members of his party and tabloids to launch an open attack on the brave deputy prosecutors Bojana Savović and Jasmina Paunović and on all others who oppose their illegal dismissal
