Jelena Ćuruvija is seeking a review of the constitutionality of the Criminal Procedure Code and the dismissal of the judges who issued the acquittal verdict for the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija.
Following the ruling of the Supreme Court, which established that the Appeals Court violated the law by committing significant procedural breaches in favor of the defendants in the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija, resulting in their acquittal, Jelena Ćuruvija submitted an initiative to the Constitutional Court of Serbia to initiate a procedure for assessing the constitutionality of the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC). At the same time, disciplinary complaints were filed with the disciplinary prosecutor of the High Judicial Council against three judges who participated in rendering the acquitting ruling of the Appeals Court in the Ćuruvija case, due to the suspicion that they acted carelessly in their judicial functions.
The initiative submitted to the Constitutional Court challenges the provision of the Criminal Procedure Code (ZKP) that excludes the possibility of appealing against a second-instance acquittal, as well as the provisions that prevent the Supreme Court from assessing the impact of legal violations found in an acquittal on the outcome of a completed criminal procedure, and from revoking the judgment if it concludes that these violations could have influenced the outcome.
The initiative emphasizes that the impetus for its submission was the legally concluded criminal procedure conducted for the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija, in which a hearing was held before the second-instance court and evidence was presented before the panel. However, after the issuance of the revised acquittal judgment, the possibility of appealing was excluded. The Supreme Court later determined that legal violations were made in the acquittal judgment, specifically significant violations of procedural rules in favor of the defendants, but due to the limitations prescribed in the ZKP, it could only acknowledge these violations without affecting the legality of the second-instance judgment.
In this way, the ZKP favors the defendants and prevents the state from fulfilling its obligations arising from the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights pertaining to the right to life and the right to an effective legal remedy, which has directly impacted the case of Ćuruvija and the rights of Jelena Ćuruvija as a victim in this matter. According to the established practice of the European Court of Human Rights, provisions governing criminal procedures as a whole must be capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible for violations of the right to life, and the legality of the judgment must not be an obstacle to reopening a case in the event of established significant violations that could affect the outcome of the criminal procedure.
Due to violations of rights, Jelena Ćuruvija will submit a constitutional appeal against the Supreme Court's ruling in the coming days, which, apart from being declarative, has no significant value in the concluded procedure.
At the same time, due to suspicions of negligent performance of judicial functions and serious disciplinary violations that significantly harm the reputation of the judiciary and public trust in the courts, disciplinary complaints have been filed with the disciplinary prosecutor of the High Judicial Council against the judges of the Appellate Court in Belgrade, Dušanka Đorđević, Marko Jocić, and Dragan Ćesarović. Disciplinary complaints have not been filed against the remaining two members of the panel – judges Nada HadžiPerić and the panel president Vesna Petrović, as they have since retired, thus ending their judicial functions.
The complaints requested the removal of the three judges due to negligent performance of judicial functions, unjustified delays in proceedings, unjustified delays in drafting decisions, and violations of the principle of impartiality. The legal and procedural violations identified by the Supreme Court are so numerous and drastic that it is hard to believe they were mere oversights.
Considering that the proceedings regarding the murder of Ćuruvija were initiated nearly 16 years after the murder and that the proceedings themselves lasted almost a decade, we urge the Constitutional Court to urgently decide on the initiative for a constitutional review and thus enable Jelena Ćuruvija to request changes to the judgments of the Appellate and Supreme Courts after the removal of unconstitutional procedural limitations from the ZKP, in accordance with Article 61 of the Law on the Constitutional Court.
The manner in which the High Judicial Council addresses the disciplinary complaints against the three judges will be a clear indicator of the extent to which this body has the strength to ensure accountability among judicial functionaries and thus take the first step in restoring the damaged trust in the judiciary.
Disciplinary complaint against Appellate Court judge Dušanka Đorđević
Disciplinary complaint against Appellate Court judge Marko Jocić
Disciplinary complaint against Appellate Court judge Dragan Ćesarović
Source: Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation
