Slander And Rape

Until recently, the authorities in Serbia had not coordinated certain laws with the Constitution, so that for a certain period Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was not protected by law, because the Serbian Criminal Law had retained only the article protecting the Presidency, members of the Presidency and Presidency President from insults and calumny, but not the President of Serbia. Lawyer Zoran Stojkovic a former long time judge of the Belgrade District Court told VREME that state symbols such as the coat of arms, the flag, the national anthem and the President's office have always been protected from insults and defamation and that this is nothing new. ``Only after the Radicals had rudely insulted Milosevic,'' said Stojkovic, ``or rather, after the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) realized that its chief was endangered, did they hurry to make sure that Milosevic and the ruling establishment would be legally protected from embarrassment.'' This is the reason why Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj was not charged with insulting the Serbian President, but with insulting the reputation of the state, which many jurists believe to be a very tottery accusation.

In future public prosecutors will be able to prosecute all those who insult the Serbian President, the Assembly, the Government, the Assembly Speaker and the Prime Minister, which means that the number of untouchables is expanding. Zoran Stojkovic said that this situation could give rise to abuse and that every word of criticism could be proclaimed defamatory. The past abounds with such examples. One to point is when a man was sentenced to 18 months in jail because he had said that ``President Tito had a perm and wore patent leather shoes.''

``By disastrously lowering the level of the judiciary and a catastrophic choice of judges, the possibilities for arbitrary interpretations of what is and what isn't an insult, are limitless. The authorities are doing this consciously,'' said Stojkovic, adding that under the mask of protection from insults and defamation, it is possible to hide attempts at stifling all criticism of the authorities, and the critics can be prosecuted regardless of the fact if they will be declared innocent or not. What matters is to abuse them. ``It is my impression that society is moving from a quasidemocratic one to a totalitarian one,'' said Stojkovic.

The adopted law on amendments and additions to the Serbian Criminal Law (of which all competent jurists and law professors say that it is worse than all the previous ones put together) says that when serious criticism is made of the people holding the above mentioned untouchable posts, then the critics will not be prosecuted. ``This means that the lawmaker is already making a difference between serious and frivolous criticism,'' said Stojkovic, and concluded that the matter concerns elements which are not legal norms, because, who will determine what is serious and what isn't. ``The path has been cleared for making such interpretations via public opinion and political stands created by TV, thus hanging the man before he's had a chance to defend himself. All that the courts have to do is carry out the technical part of the job, because public opinion has already decided that an insult has been made and that the criticism is serious. This is very dangerous and becomes even more so as the circle of untouchables expands. If things continue this way, they will have to protect the whole pyramid of authority. This won't be difficult, new amendments and additions to a law already brimming over with disastrous decrees and nonsense will follow,'' forecasts Stojkovic.

Punishment for slander has always been relatively lenient. But, if need be (if someone is very critical) a greater punishment can be meted out than in the case of manslaughter. ``A maximum three years' jail sentence for insulting a top ranking official, is a relatively high sentence,'' said Stojkovic, ``so that one doesn't know if one has been charged with slander or rape.'' Polemics on the abrogation of the verbal offense have always been political here, and not of a legal nature. Stojkovic goes on: ``The verbal offense cannot be abrogated because many criminal offenses are of a verbal nature. There is no country in the world which does not protect the honor and dignity of those who have been subjected to verbal attacks. Here this has been politicized, so that the problem lies in how to eliminate the political elements from the legal norms, which would enable the courts to abide by the law and not be allowed to make arbitrary interpretations of political platitudes. When the political elements are eliminated there won't be any more problems with the law, because the law will be interpreted correctly. Another thing, none of our laws are free of political elements.''

Stojkovic said that the worst thing was that critics of the laws which include political elements, were attacking the lawmakers from this same political aspect, and that no one was thinking of the law. ``I am skeptical when talking of the new Criminal Law, because there are serious dilemmas if any jurists took part in drafting the latest additions and amendments,'' said Stojkovic. ``Good jurists who know the Law would never write something like that. How can people who were in power for fifty years change their way of thinking overnight. Serbia's Justice Minister begged for additions and amendments to the Criminal Law to be adopted in the Assembly, saying that they had been working on a good text for the past two years and would continue to do so. In other words, he said publicly that the Assembly should adopt something that is nonsense. That was the minister's explanation.''

The Election of Judges

Last week's appointment of judges to the Supreme Court, the district and municipal courts in Serbia passed without problems in the Serbian Assembly. All were candidates of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS)there don't seem to have been any others. It all passed without a hitch, even though many of the candidates had not worked as judges before.

``What kind of an attitude will they have towards the judiciary,'' asked Stojkovic, ``when they have been elected thanks to connections. It means that they will have to be obedient, and that is just what the authorities, i.e. the ruling elite which is above the Law and the Constitution want. They are untouchable because we have, in fact, a oneparty system in which one party decides on everything including who will be prosecuted and who won't. That is why they are electing their prosecutors and judges. It was clear in the Serbian Assembly that SPS deputies weren't interested in facts. They just wished to get through the voting. There can be no talk of a state governed by law.'' The law on judges explicitly bans judges from party membership. This however, is ignored since all court presidents in Serbia are obligatory members of the SPS. ``The only point in favor of the now former Minister of Justice's promotion, was that he appeared on TV after the first elections. He was president of the court in Leskovac, and standing at the entrance to the court he said that no judge who was not an SPS member would be allowed to enter the court. This should have been sufficient to lose him his job for not observing the Constitution and the law, it however led him to being promoted to Minister of Justice.''