March 31, 2025
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has warned that public prosecutors and police officers will be replaced if they fail to protect law and order, which represents the most vicious intimidation of representatives of these state services to date. The message was directed towards police officers who, according to Vučić, didn’t act with sufficient aggression towards participants in the mass civil and student protests, but also to prosecutors who released activists from custody.
By making such calls, the President is otherwise in violation of the law and the Constitution, which guarantee independence for holders of judicial functions.
These threats to the police and prosecution service also relate to journalists and the media, particularly given such a social climate of great tension, as well as the daily protests reported on by journalists. The Prosecution service has already launched investigations and is detaining suspects for “spreading panic and fear” over reporting on the use of sonic weapons at the Belgrade protest of 15th March.
Investigations into non-governmental organisations and media outlets that took advantage of USAID donations are also underway and have prompted armed police raids of several NGOs.
The prosecution service and the police are also key factors in the resolving of many unsolved cases of attacks against journalists.
Just a few days after the president issued his threat, the prosecution dismissed criminal charges that had been filed against Milan Lađević, editor in chief of pro-regime tabloid newspaper Srpski Telegraf, for punching independent journalist Vuk Cvijić in the face.
Key figures in the Serbian prosecution service are under the control of the current regime, though there is still a section of judges and prosecutors working professionally and in accordance with the law.
Over the course of just a few days, the call opposing Vučić’s threats to prosecutors and the police was signed by almost 600 judges and prosecutors. Their statement notes that, by declaring that “those prosecutors who don’t protect law and order will be replaced”, the President of the Republic has added a new entry in his twelve years of enslavement and humiliation of the judiciary.
