The undersigned civil society organizations are addressing the public and Serbian institutions with a position paper on the announced amendments to the Criminal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, and the Law on Juvenile Offenders. The signatories warn that, in the context of a deep political and social crisis, the Government lacks the legitimacy to carry out comprehensive changes to key criminal laws—especially under the minimal 20-day deadline and through a non-transparent consultation format (submitting comments via email without a public presentation of the proposals).
“This process opens the door to further repression, the silencing of free expression, the weakening of victim protection, and the erosion of public trust in institutions. We demand that the Ministry of Justice withdraw the draft laws until genuine transparency, institutional legitimacy, and public trust are ensured—conditions that can only be achieved after free and democratic elections,” the document states.
The proposed amendments to the Criminal Code dangerously expand criminal repression: they criminalize common protest tactics such as road blockades, thereby threatening the right to peaceful assembly; they introduce a vague offense of publishing materials, which can easily be applied arbitrarily to journalists, activists, and citizens; they risk downgrading serious acts of rape to the lesser category of “sexual intercourse without consent,” contrary to the spirit of the Istanbul Convention and to the detriment of victims; and by defining a “malicious computer program,” they abandon objective criteria and require proving subjective intent, undermining legal certainty.
At the same time, the amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure cover more than 200 articles, which, given the short timeframe, makes a thorough assessment of their impact on the already established level of rights impossible. The provisions shift the burden of information onto the victim, diminish the status of particularly vulnerable witnesses, expand secret surveillance from an exception to a rule, broaden deferred prosecution, and remove the possibility of investigating unknown perpetrators. The draft Law on Juvenile Offenders further lowers the previously achieved level of child protection by narrowing the mandatory competence of specially trained judicial officials and eliminating the requirement for an ex officio legal representative for minor victims. Moreover, it is not aligned with Directive 2012/29/EU or the obligations under the Action Plan for Chapter 23.
We demand:
- The immediate withdrawal of the draft proposals from the legislative process.
- The organization of a genuine public consultation, including a public presentation with sufficient time, the involvement of experts as well as all other interested communities and individuals, and a written report that, according to national regulations, must be published after every public consultation, in line with EU standards and practices.
- Respect for the positions of the National Convention on the EU.
- Rejection of provisions that expand the scope of repression, undermine victim protection, and compromise legal certainty.
The full position paper is available here
Organizations That Signed the Statement:
Autonomni ženski centar (AŽC)
Baza aktivističke zajednice „Sviće“
BeFem – feministički kulturni centar
Belgrade Center for Human Rights
Centar za istraživanje, transparentnost i odgovornost (CRTA)
Citizens’ initiatives
Civil Rights Defenders (CRD)
European movement in Serbia
FemPlatz
Nezavisno udruženje novinara Srbije (NUNS)
Komitet pravnika za ljudska prava (YUCOM)
Ministarstvo prostora
Novosadska novinarska škola (NSSŠ)
Partneri Srbija
Polekol
SHARE fondacija
Fondacija „Slavko Ćuruvija“
Inicijativa mladih za ljudska prava (YIHR)