Photo: Jakov SimovićThe movement Ne davimo Beograd believes that by moving the election of judges and prosecutors from the Assembly to the High Council of the Judiciary and the High Council of the Prosecution, which is foreseen by the amendments to change the Constitution, which the citizens will vote on in the referendum on January 16, the political discipline of the judiciary would only continue using different methods
Citizens should go to the referendum and circle NO. This is an opportunity for us as citizens to oppose exclusion from the constitution-making process. The ruling regime wants the lack of democratic legitimacy to be made up for by "the profession" and the EU, and for all those who oppose and criticize to be presented as malicious opponents of reforms and European integration. None of this is true.
Even lay people understand well that the same rules do not apply to ordinary citizens and to political and economic elites in court. Supporters of European integration understand that there is a justified demand of the EU for an independent judiciary. Experts know how important the separation of powers is and that the judiciary must be an equal part of the government. What citizens and a significant part of experts do not see is how poorly prepared constitutional amendments, procedurally and substantively, lead to this goal. Do we have reason to believe the representatives of the authorities and those who convince us together with them that this is the best possible solution?
The parties in power collapsed democracy in Serbia in order to become irreplaceable and discipline the judiciary that could control them. They did not want a broader public discussion about the real problems of the judiciary, because numerous examples of political influence on judges and prosecutors who remain silent about criminal affairs at the top of the government would be revealed. In the Assembly, they slandered judges and prosecutors who did not act according to the will of the government.
A broad public debate would allow citizens to hear serious objections to the content of the constitutional amendments, which were highlighted by numerous professors, judges and prosecutors, as well as their suggestions on how to improve the solutions. There it could be heard that by moving the election of judges and prosecutors from the Assembly to the High Council of the Judiciary and the High Council of the Prosecution, the political discipline of the judiciary can be continued by different methods: the election of prominent lawyers who will probably be able to veto every decision of the judicial councils; by banning the political activity of judges and banning only "improper" influence on judges, which leaves a wide space for arbitrary interpretation of what judges are forbidden and what politicians are allowed.
It would also be known that the Supreme Public Prosecutor is still elected by the Assembly or the controversial five-member commission, that the number of prosecutors in the Prosecutor's Council is decreasing, and that public prosecutors are still chained by the hierarchy. Without the establishment of an independent prosecutor's office, there is no fight against the looting of public, natural and cultural assets.
Those who fear citizens that by voting against the constitutional amendments they will lose years in the process of judicial reform and European integration say that only this composition of the Assembly was able to adopt the constitutional amendments due to the overwhelming majority of the ruling coalition. However, it will be the case that the EU's request is not just a simple change in the text of the constitution, but a change in the behavior of the political elites, and that the insistence on a change in behavior is proof of a society's readiness to establish the independence of the judiciary and prosecution.
Otherwise, we could ask ourselves why such a successful one-party assembly dissolves when it is capable of establishing the division of power on its own and so quickly and completing the work of European integration.
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