The Venice Commission Issues Seven Key Recommendations for Removing Identified Shortcomings

Venice Commission ( Photo: PrintScreen)

The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters, published on April 24 an urgent opinion on amendments to five Serbian laws governing the country’s judiciary and public prosecution service and gave seven key recommendations to address shortcomings that undermine mechanisms safeguarding the autonomy of the public prosecution and the independence of the judiciary.

In the urgent opinion requested by Serbian Speaker Ana Brnabic, the Venice Commission argued that the amendments adopted on January 28 had primarily affected the scope of hierarchical control within the public prosecution service, expanded the circumstances under which temporary appointments and reappointments of public prosecutors and court presidents could be used, and altered the regime governing the temporary secondment of public prosecutors.

As stated by the Council of Europe, the Commission acknowledged the importance of the objectives that the Serbian authorities had sought to achieve, namely improving the efficiency of the judiciary and the public prosecution service, as well as enhancing the alignment of the relevant legal frameworks. In that context, it considers acceptable the new legal solution under which the authority to decide on the temporary secondment of public prosecutors has been transferred to the High Prosecutorial Council.

However, the Commission identified a number of shortcomings in the amendments which it said, both individually and cumulatively, undermined certain previous mechanisms for safeguarding the autonomy of the public prosecution and the independence of the judiciary