Captured State Threatens Citizens’ Security

In Serbia, there is a gap between law and practice, uncontrolled government seeks to diminish citizens' rights, and public attention is being drawn to unimportant issues. The way to slow down the state capture process is to strengthen institutions and networking, it was highlighted at the event organized by the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) on June 29, 2018 in Belgrade.

Captured state as a term is increasingly subject to analysis in Serbia and neighboring countries, and the European Commission’s latest Strategy for the Western Balkans mentions that there are elements of the captured state in the region, Pescanik Editor-in-Chief and panel moderator Svetlana Lukic pointed out. This term implies a form of systemic political corruption.

President of the BCSP Executive Board Miroslav Hadzicargued that the captured state was “an uncontrolled, potentially irresponsible government that only serves its own purpose.” Speaking about captured state from the security aspect, Hadzic said it makes sense to open a debate on whether there was a period when Serbia was not a captured state.

Hadzic assessed that there were never any ideas about the system reforms in the security sector, but that it was just reorganization without any substantial changes, from which we still feel consequences. He added that we are witnessing the re-politicization and ideologization of the army, police and security services and the abolition of professional autonomy.

 “In this situation, you have to constantly spread the atmosphere of fear, as in the situation of fear, you make the state capture invisible,” Hadzic emphasized, adding that the ultimate consequence of the captured state was “the abolition of citizens' security.”

Joint struggle against state capture

Judge of the Appellate Court and President of Judges’ Association of Serbia Dragana Boljevic analyzed the consequences of state capture in the field of justice.

Boljevic pointed out that she expected from the last opinion of the Venice Commission to “trade the rule of law” for the sake of daily political interests. However, the Commission recognized that the process was undermined by “an atmosphere of bitterness and resentment” and urged the authorities not to spare efforts to make a constructive debate, Boljevic assessed, adding that the draft opinion of the Venice Commission was even more direct and even more explicitly critical.

Boljevic also pointed to new proposals for constitutional changes that threaten the High Judicial Council to be dysfunctional, which would, according to her, incorporate an institution that does not function in the Constitution.

The rule of law is the obligation of every authority and not a matter of political will

The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection Rodoljub Sabic said that there is an increasing gap between Serbia's normative and real state of compliance, and that “the institution's collapse is a way of no return”.

The Commissioner warned that, while Serbia has one of the best-rated laws on free access to information of public importance, suddenly this law changes, and more than the practical changes demand. He estimated that a series of bad proposals, such as the exclusion of state-owned capital from the law, was given as a result of inadequate analysis in which relevant institutions were not consulted. For example, state capital companies are excluded from the law during the emphasized fight against organized crime and corruption.

The Commissioner pointed out that interventions that fall under his jurisdiction are responded to with a fierce attack, and that his calling for the accountability of state authorities is called political.

Unimportant topics as attention-grabbing

Regarding the respect of the existing laws, reporter Tamara Skrozza said that Serbia has well-appraised media laws that most important media institutions ignore.

Skrozza stated that certain new topics are being constantly placed, that the media community should deal with, and as an example, she announced the formation of a state “Anti Fake News Group”, which she characterized as “bizarre” because, as she assessed, “the government lives on fake news and manipulation of statistics.”

Goal of the event organized by BCSP in the Human Rights House was to point to the trends of abuse and collapse of institutions for the sake of strengthening uncontrolled political power and give recommendations to stop this process.