The Lonely Judges' Club

The Palace of Justice in Belgrade is leaking. The Court in Novi Pazar has been without heating for the last two years, so that hearings (even cases of murder) are over very quickly since all are in a hurry to leave the freezing court room. For the past year the District Court in Belgrade is without a president, while a 10,000 DM deposit recently disappeared from the court. The higher courts lack some thirty odd typists and other staff, so that it takes two months for some judgements to be typed out. Most of the typewriters are broken down. The First Municipal Court in Belgrade does not have any paper. The Post Office is not efficient in delivering court summons. The courts have no money with which to pay for expert opinions, there are no forms, glue, paper clips, and if this trend continues there soon won't be any judges either.

There are estimates that in the past two years over 370 judges have left the judiciary (often setting up office as lawyers), another 220 are preparing to do so. Serbia will lose a third of its judges. The court's criminal department is slowly turning into a club of lonely judges, while court decisions are reached on an average after three four years since several judges consider the case before it is finally resolved. The prosecutors are also leaving. This is not surprising considering that judges earn 2050 DM/month and are exposed to threats, pressures and physical violence.

``The dignity of the profession hangs in the balance,'' claims president of the Chamber of Lawyers of Serbia Toma Fila. ``Throughout the world judges are rich and respected individuals; here we see them in tattered shirts, with their ties askew. There is a danger that the only judges who will remain will be women with welloff husbands, political yesmen and corrupt judges. The others are becoming lawyers and there is an increasing number of them. During the Socialist Yugoslavia, the Chamber of Lawyers had 700800 members, now in a much more impoverished country, there are as many as 1,850! Judges who have been accepted by the Chamber of Lawyers are passing judgments while waiting to take the oath. This situation makes the judgements worthless. Apart from this, there is a tendency at circulating the thesis that the police are doing their job well and honestly, but that corrupt courts are letting the guilty go free. In this way the blame for the explosion of crime is being laid at the doors of the courts.''

During his interview with the heads of the media in Serbia, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic mentioned the courts in this context. It is a fact, however, that 94% of the crimes committed in Yugoslavia in 1992 were not solved, and this is the job of the police. That is why graft and corruption should be looked for among the police and not in the courts.

For days on end no one picks up the phone at the Serbian Ministry of Justice, and what does leak out leads to the conclusion that no one is greatly concerned over the departure of the judges. Minister of Justice Tomislav Ilic allegedly said that if need be, he would bring 400 new judges from the provinces in trucks and buses. There is a fear that in the next ten years axes will be used in meting justice and that in the absence of an efficient state governed by law, the citizens will seek ``alternative methods of protection'': armed bodyguards and ``debt collectors.'' ``Death squads'' could be the natural outcome of such a situation.

The police are doing their best to calm the citizens with claims that the overall number of committed crimes is going down, but they give no information as regards their structure. It is logical that no one is going to rob empty shops and kiosks or cars with empty reservoirs. Statistically viewed, there is not much looting, but the number of serious crimes and the violence that accompanies them is on the rise. At the same time, the judges and prosecutors are leaving so that there will be no one left to pass judgement.

``We cautioned of the collapse facing the judiciary on a number of occasions,'' said Belgrade lawyer Milenko Radic, who is also President of the Fund for the development of democracy. ``We wrote to Milosevic and pointed out the danger that the judiciary and the prosecution would soon grind to a halt or would come under the influence of people who have been made enormously rich by the war and this situation. I think that the organs of control are most responsible for the current situation. If prosecutors were to observe the rules, no one, Milosevic included, would be able to violate them. The judiciary is the very foundation of a state and must be above all and sundry. This is why judges and prosecutors must have basic conditions for work, a dignified life and independence in reaching decisions.''

Milenko Radic cautions that the situation such as it is, could be used for broadening police competencies. ``The courts have been lumbered with the Financial Police whose activities recall those of highwaymen. They confiscate goods in the absence of owners and witnesses, without the necessary papers and they do not give papers of attestation. The goods are sold immediately, and if it is later proved that the owner had observed the law, damages are paid in dinars which are devoured by a rampant inflation. There are cases when the police do not even bring in the guilty party in spite of a court order to this effect, and they offer no explanation for not doing so. This state of affairs could easily develop into what happened under former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's regime. Only the lucky ones reached the courts. The others were `judged' by house councils which shot and buried those they had judged,'' said Toma Fila.

Perhaps these forecasts have too much of a Doomsday ring to them, but it is a fact that nothing is being done to stop the degradation of the judiciary. The impression gained is that the process is, in fact, being helped along. It is enough to recall that the judges worked under serious pressure in 1991. All were suspended and their reelection followed a year later. In the meantime, none were sure if they would remain in office. Malicious gossip linked the results of the ``rump'' elections in 1992 with the fact that the presidents of all election committees were pro-regime judges, and that their professional fates were at stake. Top people in the judiciary point to a trend aimed at transferring some of the courts' competencies to the police. At a meeting of Serbian prosecutors in February this year, President of the Supreme Court of Serbia Caslav Ignjatovic said that it was ``necessary to unburden the prosecution from dealing with petty crimes.'' This was an announcement of repression, while responsibility was transferred to the judiciary which is working under practically impossible circumstances. In the meantime, a media offensive in favor of the police was launched, whereby they seek greater competencies (as if the ones they already have aren't sufficiently extensive). Belgrade District Attorney Miodrag Tmusic said in June this year that: ``The police must have competencies through which they will become an organ of the public prosecutor's office,'' and announced that ``with an efficient and strict law, even with the temporary suspending of human rights and freedoms, they would try to set up some sort of a legal situation.''

It is a certainty that the situation in the judiciary will affect a proverbially undisciplined citizenry in the worst possible way. The people will have less and less respect for the courts, judges and their decisions. At the same time, a hyperinflation of lawyers will have the effect of devaluing the profession only a few hundred can be seen in the courts, while the others are involved in other, not entirely legal activities. The situation practically begs for the people to violate the law. A potential criminal knows that his chances of being caught by the police are 1:16, and if he really has a run of bad luck, the case will take an average three years. Serving time is becoming a problem, since there is no food and no heating in Serbia's jails, so that there is a possibility that only those who bring a blanket, food, stove and fuel will be taken in. Criminals without any backing among politicians, the police, the judiciary or enough money for graft can count on these inhuman conditions, or a bullet in the head.

The Socialists managed to turn the Serbian Assembly into a circus, so that the average Serbian citizen (two thirds of the population have a primary school education, or not even this much) is definitely disgusted at the very thought of a parliamentary democracy. The police guard the summer house of top SPS officials and escort the children of ministers from school. There are no police however, to protect a judge from being butchered by some malcontent.

Even though the degree of literacy in Serbia is not particularly high, the people know how to read between the lines and turn to the only institution which, for a hefty consideration (moral or material) will offer them some kind of security the executive authorities. In this way the division of authority into the legislative, the judicial and the executive authorities will become superfluous, so that with the exception of the increasingly large police apparatus, all mediators between the people and the leader will disappear.