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In the wake of the prospective debate in the European Parliament concerning the allegations of forced labor at the Linglong factory in Zrenjanin, as well as the environmental protests in Serbia, CRTA wrote a letter to Vladimir Bilčik, the European Parliament rapporteur for Serbia and Tanja Fajon, the chairwoman of Serbia’s EU Accession Committee, drawing attention to an array of other circumstances that illustrate how endangered the democracy and citizens’ rights in Serbia are, coming as a consequence of the lack of commitment of the Serbian government to obligations under Chapter 23 and the Stabilization and Association Agreement. 

CRTA has formed an observation mission for the upcoming 2022 elections, and has begun to observe the period leading up to the official start of the election campaign. Our long-term observation will be focused on the work of state institutions and potential law changes, reporting of televisions with national coverage and local media, as well…

The Agreement on Improving the Conditions for Conducting Elections (the Agreement) and the accompanying conclusion, resulting from an inter-party dialogue conducted under the auspices of the Speaker of the National Assembly (without the mediation of the European Parliament), provide for significant changes in the electoral process, just three months before the start of the election campaign for the scheduled regular presidential and Belgrade elections and the early parliamentary elections in 2022.

If you are a young person who believes in the importance of free and fair elections as the fundamental values of a democratic society, this School will help you to get acquainted with the political and institutional mechanisms for conducting elections and the methods of work of the CRTA’s observation missions.

While domestic officials talk about the “best” report about Serbia from the European Commission (EC) in recent years, the text of the report contains a significant number of criticisms from the EU regarding the democratic capacities of Serbia’s institutions. “This is by far the best EU report on Serbia’s progress in recent years, and progress has been registered in almost every area,” reported Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić on the occasion of the EC’s latest report on Serbia’s progress in the EU accession process. The text sent to Serbia by the EC was interpreted by the Prime Minister as “a political message to our country that we have done a lot in terms of the rule of law”, and that “for the first time since 2016, we have made progress in the field of media freedom”.

Civil society organizations drew the attention of the Venice Commission delegation representatives to the fact that, when giving an opinion on the draft constitutional amendments concerning the judiciary, it is necessary to consider the state of democratic institutions, and the political context, having in mind that whether the constitutional changes will indeed ensure the independence of the judiciary depends on these two factors.

CRTA analyzed the Measures to Improve the Conduct of the Electoral Process, proposed by the co-facilitators in the course of the Inter-Party Dialogue mediated by the European Parliament, published on 18 September 2021. One segment of the proposed measures comes as a result of a political agreement – these measures constitute temporary solutions, and go beyond the existing legal and institutional framework. Assessing their enforcement will, therefore, require analzying their actual effects in practice, during the observation of the upcoming elections. The following analysis is strictly focused on legal solutions which are in line with the existing legal and institutional framework, and their possible reach and compliance with domestic legislation, as well as with international standards and recommendations by domestic and international observers. 

For the purposes of maintaining the Open Parliament website as a part of project “Back to Basics – Parliament as a Backbone for the Rule of Law”,`Crta is opening a job position for a colleague developer who would join our IT dev team! We are a group of civil society activists devoted to strengthening democratic…

The Serbian political scene has long been characterised by a worrying lack of political pluralism and the collapse of the basic mechanisms that protect democracy. The last parliamentary elections were preceded by a dialogue on improving election conditions, which did not yield results.