Vucic: Police Need Firmer Prerogatives

Police (BETAPHOTO/DRAGAN GOJIC/DS)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on June 8 that he had proposed that the government work "not on further divesting police of powers, but on giving them firmer prerogatives," stating that prerogatives had been taken from police and given to prosecutors.

"Society's greatest value, along with order and peace, is justice. Without justice there is no success in any sphere of life. To achieve it, we need stronger and more powerful police," Vucic said at the marking of Police Day, producing a big applause. He said that many people had the impression that justice in Serbia "is unequally distributed, which is a growing problem." "We are all to blame for that, including me," Vucic said.

In another statement, Vucic criticized a court ruling releasing students accused of attacking Milos Pavlovic, again comparing the attack with one in which Serbian Progressive Party members broke a student's jaw. Vucic again recounted his version of the attack on the student in Novi Sad, claiming that "the boys were just defending their property" and were then detained for it, while those who, according to him, "lynched Pavlovic" were free. The student in Novi Sad was attacked by four men with baseball bats who broke her jaw, while Pavlovic was surrounded in Belgrade by several dozen students and only doused with water.