Photo: Marko RupenaNeither Belgrade lawyers nor judges know at this moment whether they should go to work or not. The decision of the High Court, which invalidated the decision of the Belgrade Bar Association on the suspension of work, is interpreted differently
On December 21, 2021, an extraordinary session of the assembly of the Belgrade Bar Association (AKB) was held. At that meeting, a decision was made to organize it suspension of the work of lawyers registered in the directory of the Belgrade Chamber of Commerce starting from December 24 until the requirements are met.
We can classify the demands into three groups: withdrawing from the procedure of amending the Civil Procedure Act and examining the justification of its amendments, eliminating the legal uncertainty caused by the so-called supplementing the legal position of the civil department of the Supreme Court of Cassation in connection with cases in which citizens sued commercial banks and freezing the tax obligations of lawyers to the current state until an agreement between the legal profession and the state is reached.
The assembly session itself was preceded by numerous controversies and mutual accusations of lawyers, which has already been discussed several times. However, the author of these lines is of the unequivocal opinion that the problems of the "house" should be solved "in the house" and when the "house" makes a decision - that decision must be respected until it is withdrawn. However, we have reached a situation that could be called quite bizarre, to say the least.
Lawyer Aleksandar Cvejić, on the same day that the work stoppage began, submitted a lawsuit to the High Court in Belgrade against the Belgrade Bar Association with a request for annulment of the decision organizing the work stoppage and a request for the imposition of a temporary measure by which the Chamber's decision in question is invalidated until the end of the court case. procedure.
This was followed by an express reaction of the court, after which hardly anyone could complain about the efficiency of the judiciary in Serbia. Already on the last day of last year, the High Court in Belgrade passed a decision by which it adopted the temporary measure of prosecutor Cvejić and invalidated the decision of the Belgrade Bar Association on the suspension of work. The same decision established that the temporary measure will be implemented by submitting it to the defendant Belgrade Bar Association.
On the other hand, the Chamber seemed to wish for such a scenario. On December 29, it announced that it will be closed from January 3 to 7, 2022. The calendar tells us that December 1 and 2, as well as December 8 and 9, are Saturday and Sunday, which meant that the first working day of the Chamber in the new year is Monday, January 10. The members of the chamber, the lawyers of Belgrade, are left to speculate and exchange legal opinions on the topic: does the adoption of a decision adopting a temporary measure also mean the end of the suspension of the work of Belgrade lawyers?
The author of this text expected (and wished) that the answer to the previously asked question would come "home" on the first working day - that is, January 10. However, instead of an answer, we received a "notification" stating what we already knew - that the court issued a decision approving a temporary measure. Admittedly, the decision in question was submitted in PDF format as an attachment to the notice and all interested parties can see and read it.
Because of all of the above, I found myself finding it more difficult today to answer the question "do lawyers work" compared to the question that is definitely not easy - "how to vote in the referendum"? I got the impression that the opinion of the lawyers was divided.
Some believe that the temporary measure applies exclusively to the prosecutor - in this case, his colleague Aleksandar Cvejić, and that the rest of the chamber's membership is suspended. Others believe that the temporary measure invalidated the decision as a general act - and that the effect of the temporary measure extends to all Belgrade lawyers.
Judges are also not unique. We are receiving examples from the High Court in Belgrade where some judges continue to postpone scheduled hearings due to the suspension of the work of lawyers, while some other judges of the same court believe that this decision has been invalidated and that anyone who misses a hearing for that reason will suffer procedural consequences. As for the question at the beginning of this paragraph - I'm afraid everyone will have to find the answer for themselves.
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