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At the outset, we would like to make members of
the Parliamentary Assembly aware of the fact that the candidate
Mr BrankoRakic is currently the President of the Supervisory Board of
the NGO "Freedom", whose statutory objective is, inter alia, "to
affirm and implement objectives for which the long-time President of
Serbia and Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic used to
fight in the country, in the world and before so-called the Hague
Tribunal as well as for spreading the truth on his combat and
maintaining his deed. In this respect, it [NGO] shall pursue his
combat...". The Management Board of this NGO includes Mrs Mirjana
Markovic, widow of late Slobodan Milosevic. These information are
available at the NGO website www.sloboda.org.rs. As indicated in his
official biography, Mr Rakic used to be the Deputy Minister for
Human and Minority Rights and the State Secretary of the Ministry of
Justice during Mr Milosevic’s regime ill-famous for wide-spread
human rights abuses and during the wars in the former Yugoslavia.
MrRakic also used to be one of Mr Milosevic’s friends and even made
a public speech at his funeral. In view of the above, we would like
to express deep concern about the possibility that a person with
such track-records could be considered compatible with holding high
judicial office in the European Court of Human Rights. If elected,
Mr Rakic will not be able to ensure and reinforce the authority of
the Court.
Furthermore, the distributed biography of the
candidate Mr Branko Lubarda does not demonstrate that he possesses
the requisite knowledge of the International Public Law, including
in particular the European Convention or a practical legal
experience. Lastly, the third candidate Mrs Spomenka Zaric,
according to the facts known to us, has not participated in the
competition and exams and has not demonstrated in a fair and
nondiscriminatory procedure her knowledge of English and French and
the Convention, the exercise to which all applicants in the national
selection competition were subject. In fact, she has been appointed
by political authorities on a discriminatory basis without any
procedure and disregarding selection rules despite the fact that she
was subject to disciplinary proceedings on account of inefficient
work and large number of non-drafted decisions and judgments.
We believe that members of the Parliamentary
Assembly might wish to take into account the above facts when making
decision on the candidates proposed for the office of judge in the
European Court of Human Rights in respect of Serbia.
We also do hope that it is possible for members of
the Parliamentary Assembly to cancel the proposed list of Serbian
candidates. The objective of possible revoking/rejection of the
present list of candidates is to be implementation of transparent
and democratic procedure in Serbia. More precisely, the present list
does not reflect such national procedure. Main purpose of adequate
national procedure should be the proposal of three qualified,
distinguished candidates of equal references, so that the
Parliamentary Assembly can make proper election on the basis of such
list. Unfortunately, we have to point out that it is not the case in
this situation, where it is also obvious that these candidates are
not even with equal references nor possess enough moral credibility
nor relevant expertise for the position of judge of the ECHR.
"Dixi et salvam animam meam!"
Sincerely Yours,
Vesna Petrovic, Belgrade Centre for Human Rights
Milan Antonijevic, Lawyers’ Committee for Human
Rights
Dragan Popovic, Policy Centar
Sandra Orlovic, Humanitarian Law Center
Dragan Djordjevic, CHRIS Network
Maja Stojanovic, Civic Initiatives
Izabela Kisic, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights
in Serbia
Goran Miletic, Civil Rights Defenders
Coalition for Access to Justice
Center for Advanced Legal Studies
Civil Rights Defenders
Humanitarian Law Center
Youth Initiative for Human Rights
Independent Journalists' Association of Vojvodina
Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia
Sandzak Committee for the Protection of Human
Rights and Freedoms
Praxis |
