The UN Committee criticizes, while the prosecution nurtures impunity in Serbia

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has issued a serious critique of the authorities in Serbia, pointing out that our country has not provided sufficient information about the actions of the prosecution and the Constitutional Court regarding criminal offenses related to last year’s elections, which have been documented, as the Committee assesses, in the credible reports.

The validity of the UN Committee’s criticisms is evident from the fact that two weeks ago, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade announced the dismissal of the criminal complaint against the director of the Belgrade Arena, Goran Grbović. The complaint for abuse of official position against Grbović pertains to the use of the Belgrade Arena to gather individuals who are not residents of Belgrade, for the purpose of illegal voting in the Belgrade elections.

The problem of impunity for violating laws in the electoral process, highlighted by the UN body, is clearly reflected in the explanation provided by the Belgrade Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office that there are “no concrete evidence” that the Belgrade Arena was a place “where people from outside the Republic of Serbia gathered and were transported to polling stations.”

Without delving into the evidence presented by the specific complainant to the prosecution, the cynicism of the prosecution to evade the responsibility is alarming, pretending not to be aware of numerous evidence on organized voter migrations, which have been present in the public for months and precisely outlined in the final report of the CRTA Election Observation Mission.

A prosecution that is not willing to perform its work, namely to protect the public interest and the legality of the electoral process, is a huge obstacle to combating impunity, which has increasingly eroded the integrity of elections and endangered the democratic order in Serbia for years.

In the Concluding observations on the fourth periodic report of Serbia, the UN Committee highlights the misuse of public resources, public officials campaigning, voter intimidation, vote-buying, violation of voting secrecy, stuffing of ballot boxes, falsification of citizens’ signatures supporting electoral lists – practically most of the problems for which CRTA concludes that there are no conditions for free and fair elections in Serbia.

Like the UN Human Rights Committee, CRTA once again calls on the highest state institutions to urgently investigate all allegations of electoral irregularities, prevent voter intimidation, and enable the establishment of a clear boundary between the roles of the state and the ruling party in elections.