The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights wishes to inform the public that the Report of the Ombudsman relating to the lack of efficient and effective investigation of allegations of ill-treatment is entirely true. In a number of cases before the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Serbia and the European Court of Human Rights, Serbia was found responsible of not having conducted a proper investigation into allegations of ill-treatment. Some of these cases are: Stanimirović v. Serbia (Application no. 26088/06), Hajnal v. Serbia (Application no. 36937/06), Lakatoš v. Serbia (Application no. 3363/08), Habimi and others v. Serbia (Application no. 19072/08), Petković v. Serbia (Application no. 31169/08), as well as the case before the Constitutional Court of Serbia concerning Constitutional Complaint 4100/2011.
Based on the Belgrade Centre’s data, which was collected from 90% of basic courts that have jurisdiction over prosecuting the perpetrators of the criminal offense of ill-treatment and torture (Art. 137 of the Criminal Code) and extortion of statements (art. 136 of the Criminal Code), in the period from 1 October 2012 to 1 November 2014, 78 cases against 138 officials were, or still are, conducted for the crime of ill-treatment and torture and extortion of statements (in most cases, members of the police forces).
Out of the 79 procedures, final decisions was issued in 23 cases, whereas a police officer was only found responsible in two cases. One verdict resulted in a suspended sentence, and the other in imprisonment for a term of eight months. In all other cases, public officials were not found responsible because either the prosecutor (public or subsidiary) had repealed the indictment or the court had found the officials as not being responsible.
The Council of Europe Committee against Torture (which will visit Serbia again this year) has repeatedly indicated irresponsible examinations of the allegations of ill-treatment and reported that ex officio attorneys, public prosecutors and judges (previously investigative judges and now judges for preliminary proceedings) do not respond appropriately to allegations of ill-treatment.
The existing legislative framework clearly reflects the attitude of the RS officials concerning the prosecution and punishment of alleged perpetrators of ill-treatment, seeing as how, following the entry into force of the new Code of Criminal Procedure on 1 October 2013, the possibility of potential victims of ill-treatment to file criminal charges against the perpetrators prior to the confirmation of the indictment was abolished, which is important if the public prosecutor should withdraw or decide not to open an investigation into potential abusers.
The provisions of the Criminal Code, which do not contain adequate penalties and provide a statute of limitations for the criminal prosecution of acts of ill-treatment (which is a direct violation of ius cogens norms – norms of international law from which no deviation is allowed under any circumstances), are also contentious.
For years, the UN Committee Against Torture has underlined this problem, while Serbia has failed to fully comply with the Committee’s recommendations.
The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights will enable any interested party to have insight into the cases in which it has represented the victims of ill-treatment and torture and in which Serbia was found responsible for reasons of having failed to discover and punish the perpetrators.
In Belgrade, 24 April 2015
