The Working group of the National Convention on the European Union (NCEU) for Chapter 23 calls on the Ministry of Justice to extend the public debate until the end of the year regarding the Draft Laws on Amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, which were made available to the public on September 27, with an announcement that the public debate would last from October 1 to November 1, 2024.
The duration of the public debate, set to the minimum legal period, on two laws of systemic importance for the functioning of the judiciary and basic human rights is not proportional to the scope and significance of the proposed amendments. We particularly emphasize that both drafts were prepared by working groups over a period of more than three years, yet the expert and broader public have been given only one month to consider the texts, alongside three other judicial laws concerning the status of judges, public prosecutors, and the Judicial Academy.
The proposed amendments to the criminal laws include the introduction of new criminal offenses, such as “publication of materials advising the commission of a criminal offense,” the removal of the criminal offense of “coercion to testify,” the introduction of life imprisonment for new criminal offenses, and similar provisions that have the potential to seriously affect the state of basic human rights in Serbia and reduce their current scope. Taking all this into account, the NCEU working group for Chapter 23 believes that a debate on such changes to the legal regime is necessary with various social actors from both the expert and broader public.
We note that representatives of the NCEU working group for Chapter 23 met with the Ministry of Justice’s working groups in December 2023, who worked on the amendments to both laws and were at that time provided with very limited oral information on the directions of the amendments. Despite calls made to the Ministry of Justice to continue communication on these legislative changes, it has not been renewed. Efforts to start and conduct a public debate on two laws essential to Serbia’s criminal justice system, in accordance with the minimal standards of democratic debate, have been unsuccessful. Given all of this, a public debate lasting one month, with only four public meetings in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, and Kragujevac, is not proportional to the significance of the proposed changes.
The NCEU working group for Chapter 23 stresses that an inadequate public debate and the adoption of these amendments in a short time frame threaten the basic human rights of Serbian citizens and could jeopardize progress within Chapter 23 negotiations, without which any other institutional advancement in the EU negotiation process is called into question.
