EditSerbia: Vučić’s quiet offensive to capture the judiciary
If passed, proposed laws would allow the government to pre-select future judges years in advance, effectively turning the Judicial Academy into a political filter
The Serbian government is intensifying its long-term campaign to bring the country’s courts and prosecutors under tighter executive control, despite vocal opposition from the judiciary itself, the Venice Commission, and Brussels.
Two parallel moves are currently underway.
- A single-track judicial academy – the back door to control the bench
On 9 December, the High Judicial Council (VSS) unanimously urged the Ministry of Justice to withdraw two draft laws that would force all future judges and prosecutors to be recruited exclusively from graduates of the state-run Judicial Academy – an institution widely seen as loyal to the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).
The proposed system would end the current “double-track” entry (direct election by the VSS from experienced lawyers plus Academy graduates) and hand the executive decisive influence over who can even apply for judicial posts. The Ministry has already signalled it will ignore the VSS opinion and send the bills to parliament as early as this week.
The High Judicial Council warned that the draft directly violates a 2022 Constitutional Court ruling which declared such exclusive reliance on the Academy unconstitutional. Brussels and the Venice Commission have repeatedly stated that the reform would “seriously undermine judicial independence in the long term”.
If passed, the laws would allow the government to pre-select future judges years in advance, effectively turning the Judicial Academy into a political filter.
- War on the independent prosecutors
The second front is an open assault on Prosecutor General Zagorka Dolovac and the autonomous Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime (TOKT), headed by Mladen Nenadić.In recent weeks:Pro-government MPs refused to adopt the annual report of the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office, an unprecedented move designed to discredit Dolovac.
Ministers and tabloids have intensified personal attacks on Dolovac after she met Eurojust President Michael Schmid in The Hague and jointly warned that planned changes to the prosecution service would harm international cooperation.
The government is pushing amendments that would fold the independent TOKT into the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade, placing it under Nenad Stefanović – a prosecutor widely regarded as loyal to President Vučić.
Dolovac’s “sin” appears twofold: she has resisted subordinating TOKT to Stefanović and, unlike him, has refused to turn the prosecution into an active instrument against regime critics. Paradoxically, the same Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime is currently leading several sensitive investigations that could embarrass the government, including the collapse of the Novi Sad railway station concrete canopy in November 2024 (which killed 15 people) and irregularities surrounding the Army Headquarters reconstruction project. Material from the Sky ECC encrypted chats, shared by European partners, is also believed to be in TOKT’s hands.
Street and institutional resistance
On 7 December, hundreds of judges, prosecutors and lawyers protested in central Belgrade against what they called “the announced destruction of the Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime”. The High Prosecutorial Council has issued unusually sharp statements accusing the authorities of “the gravest inappropriate pressure” on the prosecution service.
Why now?
For years the SNS tolerated a passive, largely inert prosecution that turned a blind eye to high-level corruption. Today, with elections approaching and multiple scandals threatening to erupt, passivity is no longer enough – the ruling party wants prosecutors who will actively shield the government and, when needed, strike at its opponents.
If the current offensive succeeds, independent pockets of the judiciary – already reduced to a minimum – would be effectively eliminated, handing Vučić’s administration control over both the appointment of new judges and the country’s most sensitive criminal investigations.
The European Commission’s 2025 Enlargement Report, expected in the coming weeks, is almost certain to classify these moves as serious backsliding on Chapters 23 and 24 – the rule-of-law cluster that remains the biggest obstacle to Serbia’s EU membership.
Caption: Drummers march to mark one year since the start of student-led protests in Belgrade, Serbia, 22 November 2025. The movement, sparked by the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse on 01 November 2024, demands accountability for the 16 victims, the release of detained students, and immediate snap parliamentary elections. EPA/ANDREJ CUKIC
Updated: December 11, 2025 - 07:26
