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Who are the judges who make decisions in the most important trials in the country? Why did many of them end with the liberation of controversial businessmen, politicians and criminals? How do judges progress in their careers, when they made illegal decisions, what property do they have? The KRIK database on judges “Judge Judging” provides answers to these questions. In our database, you can read the profiles of 33 Belgrade appellate and superior court judges serving in the organized crime and corruption departments, but also details on up to 124 major court cases.
Writes: Stevan Dojčinović, Bojana Pavlović
The disappointing news mainly comes to the citizens of Serbia from the judiciary: that former ministers, suspicious businessmen and heads of criminal groups have been released after long and controversial lawsuits. It is rarely known what led to the acquittals and who approved them.
Although as “distributors of justice” they have one of the most important roles in the state, on which citizens’ trust in democracy depends in part, judges in Serbia are almost completely anonymous. The courts do not even publish their names in the announcements about the approved verdicts.
When voting in chambers, the law keeps secret which judge voted.
Aside from court decisions, it is also a secret how much judges earn and what they have. The Belgrade High Court and Court of Appeal, as well as the Supreme Court of Cassation, refused to provide KRIK journalists with data on the salaries of judges during the investigation, even though it is of undoubted public importance.
For a large number of judges, data on their salaries, as well as what they have from real estate, cannot be found on the website of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, which otherwise provides data on property and the income of public officials.
The judges who try organized crime cases are an exception because, at their request, the Agency can “lock” their property card, so that citizens cannot see what they possess. The judges justify it by taking care of their own security, however, this argument does not hold since the Agency does not publish the address of the property, not even the city in which it is located, but only the square meters, and publishing this information does not it can endanger the safety of judges.
In addition to being justly protected from transparency, judges are often deprived of responsibility for their work.
No one is to blame for outdated and failed court cases, infrequent appointments and frequent trial postponements, discarded evidence, and illegal decisions. Disciplinary proceedings against judges are the exception rather than the rule.
With the “Judgment Who Judges” database, KRIK journalists want to make the biographies and work of judges, their advancement in the judiciary and the most important cases more accessible to citizens.
Readers will be able to view the profiles of 33 judges from the Belgrade High and Appeal Courts serving in the organized crime and corruption departments. The database also presents the most important cases in which he was tried: a total of 124 cases.
KRIK journalists relied on court documents and other official sources in the investigation.
In some of the largest trials in the country, judges have often delayed proceedings, shown negligence in their work, but have even broken the law with their decisions.
The trials of Stanko Subotic, Luka Bojovic and Branko Lazarevic, in which the judges did not accept or withdraw from the process some of the key evidence from the prosecution, are some of the most illustrative examples of this. In all three cases, the Supreme Court of Cassation determined that the judges had violated the law in favor of the accused. None of these judges suffered consequences for it, not even public condemnation.
In addition to breaking the law when making decisions, KRIK journalists found that judges often violate other regulations: failing to report property, committing traffic violations, sometimes failing to pay taxes, or getting into fights. In such situations, caught in a misdemeanor and faced with the law, those who carry it out in their daily work often do not obey it: they refuse to sign a police report or pay a fine and do not respond to subpoenas.
Interestingly, judges are generally not punished for traffic offenses; proceedings against them often drag on until the statute of limitations expires.
Some out-of-court referees occupy positions and environments that may call into question their dignity as judges, such as football and other sports clubs, which are mostly crime scenes in Serbia.
Some judges also have large assets that cannot be explained by the judge’s salary and yet they do not want to explain to the public how they acquired it. Such movements destroy the already fragile trust of citizens in the institutions they represent.
Despite the public importance of what they do, judges generally do not want to communicate with the media. Before the database was released, KRIK attempted to interview the judges, but most did not respond to the invitation.
The judges of the Belgrade High Court showed more understanding for the public. President Aleksandar Stepanović, Judges Dragomir Gerasimović, Marija Arandjelović Jureša and Vera Vukotić spoke with journalists from this court, while Siniša Petrović, Svetlana Aleksić, Mirjana Ilić and Snežana Jovanović responded to our questions in writing. Novi Sad court judge Dejan Terzic, who was sent to the Belgrade court, also spoke to journalists.
From the Belgrade Court of Appeals, neither the president nor the judges agreed to speak to the KRIK journalists, nor did they answer the questions we sent them through the court spokesperson.
Find out more about judges and cases in our database “Judge Judging” at this link.
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