Down By Law

The day the protest by several hundred thousand Serbians over the election fraud entered its fourth week and amid a rebellion of lawyers because their profession was limited to the interests of the ruling party, the Belgrade election commission calmly, as if nothing was in dispute, verified city assembly mandates and went on to constitute the Belgrade city assembly with a huge socialists majority. Earlier, a federal court rejected appeals to review a decision by the city’s first district court and the republican public prosecutor rejected an initiative for protection against a Serbian Supreme Court ruling confirming that Zajedno coalition mandates had been taken away.

VREME asked Vesna Vodinelic-Rakic, a law school professor and legal advisor to the Zajedno coalition, for a comment: "There’s no room for surprise. These are parallel worlds. We live in ours, they live in theirs and the two can never meet".

In the world that would like to live in a state that applies the constitution and law, basic principles of democracy and healthy reasoning, lawyers continue raising their voices against legal piracy by the state. The rebellion by five Serbian Supreme Court judges and some 50 law school professors and prominent lawyers spread to lower court judges and other lawyers.

On December 9, The Belgrade Lawyers’ Association set up a commission to evaluate the legality of the elections. Belgrade university law school professor Vojin Dimitrijevic said then that the decision to annul the second round of local elections "is unconstitutional to both lawyers and laymen" and added that the decision is "a demeaning of the reputation of judges and the entire legal system". Dimitrijevic said the commission should urgently establish all the violations of regulations in the elections. He said the annulment of the election results is not just a question of the law and democracy but "a violation of the moral, professional and human integrity of all judges and lawyers who didn’t become a service of the authorities". The seven-member lawyers’ commission charged law school professor Zoran Tomic with the duty of rapporteur judge who will base his recommendations for a stand on the legality of the ruling on all available, although incomplete, documents. Commission chairman Slobodan Soskic said the commission will confirm its own objectivity only if it sticks to the law and legal arguments "without entering into the political dimensions of the decision to annul the second round of elections".

In Belgrade’s Palace of Justice, lawyers have been signing a letter they intend to send to the supreme court, lawyers’ association and justice ministry. The petition says "honorable judges do not support thrones which weren’t won with the will of the people".

Finally, some 30,000 Belgrade students left copies of the constitution in front of the Serbian Supreme Court building because, the students said, the judges "never saw or read it".

In all that time, in the world of arrogant ignorance populated by the regime, Mira Markovic, JUL directorate director, told a tribunal in the town of Zagubica she was concerned over the protests in Serbia and created an unreal construction: "Even if they loose at elections, they must not resort to the things part of the opposition in Belgrade and other places is using". A statement from JUL’s Belgrade board said "only respect for the will of the electorate and legal procedure can determine the results and regularity of the elections. That statement also urged "a tolerant atmosphere without pressure on the courts" and added that "there were attempts to devalue and destroy the entire legal system by force as part of an overall destabilization of our country". It ends: "because of all that, the JUL Belgrade board calls all patriotic forces in the country and in Belgrade to energetically resist those intentions".

Belgrade SPS chief Branislav Ivkovic spoke to Belgrade election commission (the same commission that called for a review of the annulment decision by the Serbian Supreme Court and republican public prosecutor) prior to the session that verified the disputed mandates: "If the results are what we expect and which we feel are right, we’ll quickly organize a city assembly because we have to continue living normally in this city". He said "as chairman of the city board I absolutely used legal procedure" and added that the "city election commission did not fall under the influence of the socialists".

The commission confirmed that the leftist coalition had 66 seats in the city assembly and Zajedno 31. Original election records show that Zajedno should have gotten 70 seats and the SPS 23.

Now, under an ideal scenario by the regime, the protesters should go home and allow the assembly to constitute itself despite the Zajedno boycott because it has the number of members its needs (56 of 112). Something similar will probably happen in other rebel towns and the courts should finally understand that they should stay where they are, or perhaps be even more obedient. The signatories of petitions should will be remembered and removed as if nothing had happened.

But things won’t be that easy. Everything was set for Slobodan Milosevic to compromise to save himself from catastrophe. When the Belgrade election commission surprised everyone by appealing to the Supreme Court, that court was expected to accept the appeal (which was the same as the appeal from Zajedno) to annul the third round of elections and accept the results of the second round. The media reported that SPS secretary Gorica Gajevic and JUL official Zoran Todorovic organized the election fraud without telling Milosevic. Scapegoats had been prepared, the Serbian president would turn out to be a democrat in the eyes of the world and the protesters would go home. That seemed to be the best strategy for Milosevic but he showed that he doesn’t care how many defeats it takes to make a victory for himself.

The regime has forgotten a basic legal principle - a false portrayal of something does not prove anything. Even if the lawyers calm down and the protesters go home, it’s possible that Serbia faces a new situation. Or to paraphrase Winston Churchill: This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. But this may be the end of the beginning.