Krah reizbora u pravosuđu
The Collapse of the Re-election in the Judiciary System

Summary/Abstract: After the democratic changes, Parliament of Serbia adopted set of laws that were aimed at reforming the judiciary system in Serbia in 2001. The attempted reform failed due to the obstruction by the executive branch of government that was in power at that moment. After the adoption of the new Constitution of Serbia, Parliament adopted a new set of laws aimed at reforming the judiciary in 2008. The laws provided for a new system and new network of courts and offices of public prosecutors, and there were post-Constitutional elections in the judiciary, i.e. the judges and public prosecutors, including the ones who were already appointed, were re-elected. The process of re-election incorporated some unbearable flaws, and many judges and public prosecutors who had not been re-elected have submitted appeals to the Constitutional Court of Serbia. As the Constitutional Court made decisions on only 2 appeals over the period of 1 entire year, the state was forced to amend the Law on Judges and to convert devolutive appeals of judges who hadn't been re-elected into demonstrative complaints which were to be reviewed by the High Council of the Judiciary, the organ that already decided in the matter in the first instance. The Parliament adopted similar amendments to the Law on Public Prosecutors. Once the decisions on complaints had been adopted, the judges and public prosecutors submitted appeals to the Constitutional Court of Serbia. The Court adopted general decision on annulment of decisions on rejections of complaints, and instructed the High Council of the Judiciary to adopt decision on election of judges and public prosecutors, since the presumption that judges and public prosecutors fulfill the conditions for election as prescribed for in Council's general act, had not been overthrown. But the above mentioned decision of the Constitutional Court of Serbia failed to resolve all the controversial issues nevertheless. The competent judiciary authorities still need to solve the status of judges who had been re-elected, even though they failed to meet the prescribed criteria. Furthermore, decision on appeals of the remaining judges and public prosecutors who hadn't been elected still needs to be taken. Decisions of the Constitutional Court have to be carried out through strict application of provisions of article 30 of Regulation for Implementation of Decision on determination of criteria and standards for evaluation of expertise, qualifications and worthiness to be elected a judge and procedure for re-evaluation of 1st Invocation of High Council of Judiciary's decisions on the termination of judiciary functions. One must also strictly implement provisions of clauses 1 and 2 of the article 14 of Regulation on procedure for re-evaluation of 1st Invocation of Chamber of Public Prosecutors' and application of criteria and standards for evaluation of expertise, qualifications worthiness to be elected a public prosecutor.

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