Serbian Judicial Chief Blames Sack on Politics

Nata Mesarovic, former president of Serbia's High Judicial Council, who was sacked yesterday from her position by the parliament, claims she was removed from her duty for political reasons.

After Serbia's parliament on Wednesday adopted a proposal of the High Judicial Council to dismiss Nata Mesarevic as president, she claimed that politics had again won over justice.

“Force has again defeated the law. Those who proposed the dismissal are not legally entitled to request it in the given situation,” Mesarovic told the daily newspaper Blic.

She added that the judiciary had not succeeded in protecting its independence from the executive power. 

The Council’s request was based on the decision of Constitutional Court, which earlier ruled that her initial appointment was unconstitutional.

But Mesarovic said that those MPs who had voted for her dismissal are also those who earlier appointed her as president of the Council.

“I will remind you that I did not appoint myself to this position, but parliament did,” she added. 

Mesarovic has been widely criticized by Serbia's ruling coalition for bungled reforms to the corpus of judges that she was in charge of, together with former Justice Minister Snezana Malovic.

Experts accused the Judicial Council of sacking good judges for political reasons and of promoting others with deeply problematic records – and of doing it all far from the public eye.

Mesarovic rejected accusations that she was responsible for the apparent failure of the judicial reforms. 

“The real truth is that the judicial reform was determined and drafted by parliament on the government’s proposal, based on the constitution and on laws that were later passed. The High Judicial Council, VSS, and I, as its president, did as the government and parliament determined,” she said.