Serbian lawyers stopped work for three days, but without a general strike in the judiciary, experts say only EU pressure can force the government to retract controversial legal amendments deemed “a serious step back”.
Katarina Baletic
Courts in Serbia fell quiet for the first three days of this week as lawyers went on strike in protest at a controversial set of judicial amendments, but it’s European Union pressure that experts say will be decisive in forcing the government to reverse course.
Critics of the government say the amendments, adopted in late January, will weaken the judiciary and particularly organised crime prosecutors who have found themselves in the crosshairs of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, and Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic.
Calling the February 23-25 strike, the Board of Directors of Serbia’s Bar Association said the amendments endangered “basic human rights and the freedoms of all citizens”.
“It is obvious that the goal was to obstruct the work primarily of the Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime, and then of all other prosecutors’ offices through those laws,” lawyer Vladimir Terzic, who sits on the Bar Association’s Board of Directors, told BIRN.
