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Dismissal of the lawsuit due to administrative omissions, verdicts establishing that the court has no jurisdiction to act in this case and ordering the plaintiff to pay the defendant 160,000 pounds in damages – this is the result of the proceedings against the Serbian Orthodox Church in court London on sexual charges. abuse.
The announcement that a lawsuit against the Serbian Orthodox Church will be brought to the High Court in London for six cases of abuse that allegedly took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia in the 1990s has already garnered a lot of media attention. Speaking to the media at the time, lawyer Mladen Kesar, who filed the lawsuit, explained that his clients had been abused by certain priests, as well as SOC leaders, and that they could not have a fair trial in these countries due to the great influence of the Serbian church in the court. , so this is one of the reasons the lawsuit is filed in England. Furthermore, as he explained, cases brought by prosecutors outside of British territory are often accepted in British courts if a connection to this country is proven, and in this case, as Kesar said, it would be the Serbian church in Britain, which is under direct administration of the Patriarchate in Belgrade – the “accused”. He also announced that there are 30 more similar lawsuits prepared against the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Thus, in a process that posed a great danger to the Serbian church in Great Britain, but also to the entire Serbian Orthodox Church, according to Marko Gasic, president of the ecclesiastical community of London and commissioner of the local church of St. Sava, by acts outside her: neither the prosecutors nor the defendants have anything to do with Britain or the church there. However, the danger that the valuable property of the Serbian church in England would be called into question in this process was real.
Thanks to great caution and the fact that their lawyers were immediately hired to contact Kesar’s law office, the London church community was not sued and Gasic believes that was the original intention.
– The objective was to sue our parish of Saint Sava in London with the explanation that we are only a branch of the Patriarchate and blindly listen to their orders. As it was unsuccessful, the lawsuit was transferred to the church in general – says Marko Gasic for “Politika”.
The trial before the High Court of Justice in central London, in a building built in the 19th century, began in January, in the presence of representatives of the media, because the whole case attracted great public attention. Gasic says that acting judge Master Cook thoroughly studied the documentation presented to him, and also included an extensive summary of the history of the Orthodox Church in Great Britain, which was prepared by our interlocutor.
– It is explained that our church was created according to the English model and English regulations, that it was founded after the Second World War by people who had to withdraw from the former Yugoslavia due to the outcome of the war and that the Patriarchate did not finance, and maybe he couldn’t. that she wanted, our church. We explained that we are in full spiritual unity with the Patriarchate of Serbia, but that we are administratively and financially independent. Judge Cook, among other things, made a decision in our favor based on that. I was very pleased that he called us the “Church of England” when he criticized Caesar for suing the “Church of England” for events that had nothing to do with it, alluding to the fact that we were founded by and by the laws of England. laws we got. and protection – says Gasic.
It explains that the claim was dismissed due to procedural errors of the plaintiff, that the judge could only hand down a verdict for that and put an end to everything, but that the legal representative of the Serbian church asked the judge to declare the jurisdiction of the English court, because it ad. 30 such lawsuits and it could happen that the Serbian Orthodox Church is back at the London court.
– The judge said that the English court has no jurisdiction in this case, that it cannot be used as a universal court. Otherwise, the English are not so willing to participate in legal proceedings that have nothing to do with them or their citizens. Because he initiated an unnecessary process, that he did not understand the issue of jurisdiction, he refused to dialogue with our legal representative who tried to explain it to him, the judge also ruled that César must pay punishable costs. There are costs not only of the judicial procedure, but also those that the court judges when it values that the conduct of a lawyer was so irresponsible that legal facts were not taken into account, that a procedure was initiated that should not have been carried out at all. In the name of that compensation, the payment of 160,000 pounds was awarded to the Patriarchate of Serbia on behalf of the coasts – says Gasic.
It notes that this process should be a warning to the Serbian Orthodox Church that it must urgently adopt clear procedures and ensure that irresponsible people, including those in its own ranks, are left without valuable assets, perhaps even without the opportunity to continue the mission. of a certain country in a quality way.
– The cases for which the lawsuit was filed in London should not be left to the police alone, nor should we pretend to be blind to the horrible phenomena that exist in society and to which the Church is not immune. Before the police, the church must have its own procedures to react and investigate such cases, in order to protect itself and its believers from those who commit such crimes, but also from those who would like to benefit from it by initiating legal proceedings – Gasic concludes.
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