Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006

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Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006IntroductionDuring 2006 and during previous years, the Youth Initiative for HumanRights (hereinafter: the Initiative) investigated the violation o human rights inSerbia. The international and domestic standards regulate all-encompassingprotection of human rights corpus, but the Initiative focused this year onthe right to free access to information, instigation of racial, religious andnational hatred and intolerance, hate speech, the right to rehabilitation, andpolice torture.The right to free access to information is regulated by the Law on FreeAccess to Information of Public Importance (hereinafter: the Law onFree Access to Information) 768 . This law regulates mechanisms that shouldpreventively provide protection of this citizen right, but also sanction thoseresponsible for its violation. Except for the institution of commissioner forinformation of public importance, which has shown large credibility anddedication to the rule of law, we may conclude that the said mechanismsdid not fulfill expectations and that they did not justify their existence. Onthe one hand, this came as a result of their wrong concept and the factthat they are inapplicable in practice, but on the other hand it is a resultof irresponsible, unprofessional and unserious approach of state authoritybodies in implementation of this right and its protection in practice. At theend of 2005, the Initiative submitted first requests for starting infringementprocedures against responsible persons in public authority bodies, and tenof these requests were submitted until October this year. Competent cityand municipal departments for misdemeanors have not started any of theprocedures, which consequently means that we do not have one single ruling.A first ruling due to disrespect of the Law on Free Access to Informationwas recently passed in Montenegro 769 .Racial, religious and national hatred and intolerance exist in Serbia. TheInitiative described the cases of “Four assaults against Zivota Milanovic,Brahman of Hare Krishna religious community” and “Ethnically MotivatedViolence in the Serbian Army “. The first case encompasses incidents whichZivota Milanovic has been facing since 2001. He has been attacked fourtimes, he was stabbed in his stomach with a knife twice, beaten with baseball768 The Law on Free Access to Information, see above under 3, Article 5769 The Montenegrin Administrative Court fined the National Security Agency as it held the number of its employeesas state secret although no legal act regulated that such type of information is state secret140
Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006bats, and recently attackers carved a cross on his forehead. The Police inJagodina have still not discovered the perpetrators of these crimes. Whileserving his military service in the military barracks “Sopot” in Pozarevac,Anis Masovic was a victim of a group of soldiers who decided to “beatup the Muslims” that night. During the night, they covered him with ablanket and beat him with shovels, causing him grave bodily injury. In thiscase the District prosecutor’s office in Pozarevac has been conducting aninvestigation for a year and a half now. The reactions of the institutions incharge are indicative and they show that there is no legal will in Serbia toinstitutionally admit, through court rulings and punishing those who areresponsible, to acknowledge the existence of racial, religious and nationalhatred and animosity.The Law on Rehabilitation 770 was recently enforced as a result of whichthere is still no court practice that could provide more precise estimationof the exercise of this right. With the aim of controlling the regulatedlegal mechanisms and creating court practice, the Initiative initiated a caserequesting the rehabilitation of Senad Sljivo from Jagodina, his return towork in the Serbian Ministry of Interior and publication of data about himas a rehabilitated person in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia.Although the request for rehabilitation of Senad Sljivo was submitted at theend of May 2006, the Jagodina District Court has not started the procedureuntil November this year.Hate speech 771 is a frequent occurrence in the Serbian media space, withdaily newspapers GLAS JAVNOSTI and KURIR as leaders. The Initiativepressed charges to establish the hate speech against responsible personsin these newspapers. GLAS JAVNOSTI published an advertisement titled“Boycott” asking the citizens of Serbia to boycott shopping in Croatianshop IDEA with an explanation that “the Croatian foot is walking theSerbian land without any problem,” that “every purchase is a donation tothose who killed us and evicted us from our homes,” and with a threat that“those who shop in that store and who do not show solidarity with hundredsof thousands of refugees and persecuted Serbs will be monitored.” In anarticle titled “Even Shiptars Mock at Us” KURIR reported that “Shiptars770 The Law on Rehabilitation, see above under 736771 Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe No. R (97) 20 defines “hatespeech” as a forms of expression which spread, motivate, incite or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitismand all forms of hatred based on intolerance, including intolerance incited by aggressive nationalism andethnocentrism, discrimination and hostility to minorities, migrants and persons of immigrant origin141
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