Justice Minister: Venice Commission to Send in First Draft of Report on Serbian Judicial Legislation Soon

Nenad Vujic (BETAPHOTO/MILAN ILIC)

Serbian Justice Minister Nenad Vujic said on March 18 that the Venice Commission, whose delegation recently visited Serbia, had announced that it would send Belgrade the first draft of its report on recently adopted judicial legislation, known as the Mrdic Laws, "very quickly," "so everyone can provide comments."

"If the Venice Commission gives certain recommendations of course Serbia as a serious country with long-standing cooperation with it will enter the process of amending those laws -- if the recommendations also state in what direction -- and then we will enter a round of talks to see if those solutions are what they proposed," Vujic told the Serbian Broadcasting Corporation.

He stressed that the Venice Commission "isn't any court of law -- they issue recommendations and we will enter into that process with them." "The European Commission listens to the opinion of the Venice Commission as a guiding principle, but we have had situations too when the EC would say it disagreed. It is all dialogue. Let's wait for the opinion of the Venice Commission and see if it will have any fundamental objections, if the report will say what was said off-hand -- that [the legislation] is some kind of step backward. Then we'll see," Vujic said.

He went on to say that he did not see any undermining of Serbia's bid to join the European Union in the adoption of the judicial legislation, stating that it did not diminish the independence of judges or prosecutor's offices. The Venice Commission said in a statement earlier that its urgent opinion, requested by Serbian Speaker Ana Brnabic, on the recent amendments to judicial legislation adopted in Serbia would be presented for adoption at a plenary session of the Council of Europe advisory body in June.