The Draft Law on Internal Affairs prepared by the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia does not meet procedural requirements, ignores key problems identified in practice, and, in some instances, even undermines the standards achieved. Moreover, the Draft Law fails to achieve the envisaged objectives for the reform step 9.3.1.2. in Serbia\u2019s Reform Agenda, i.e., to effectively address the issue of police autonomy from the Ministry of Interior during the pre-investigation and investigation phases, as well as the recommendations from the Committee for Prevention of Torture.<\/p>\n
In this document, a brief overview of the procedural and material deficiencies in the Draft Law is provided, highlighting several conclusions: the operational independence of the police is only declarative; human rights and the prevention of torture remain below the required standards; internal and external controls are in decline; and human resources management needs improvement.<\/p>\n
More detail is provided on areas highlighted in the Reform Agenda<\/a> of 2024, Report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT)<\/a> from January 2024 and GRECO Fifth round of evaluations<\/a> of 2022 regarding anti-corruption measures in law enforcement, as well as the other most problematic provisions.<\/p>\n The NCEU Working Groups for Chapters 23 and 24 assess<\/a> the manner in which the public debate on the Draft Law on Internal Affairs has been conducted as unacceptable for both the citizens of Serbia and Serbia\u2019s European integration process. While formally aligned with minimum procedural requirements, the process substantially restricts public participation.<\/p>\n This document has been sent to the European Commission, which is expected to evaluate the revised Draft Law after the official public debate.<\/p>\n The joint comments in English are available here<\/a>. The full version of the joint comments in Serbian is available here<\/a>. Moreover, BCSP detailed and reasoned comments are available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the coordinator of the Working Group for Chapter 24 within the National Convention on the European Union (NCEU), BCSP compiled joint comments from nine NCEU member organizations on the Draft Law on Internal Affairs, which was subject to official public debate in April 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":36045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8615,8622,11222],"tags":[11199,11591,11593,11590,11592],"vrsta":[11589],"pdfpub":[],"coauthors":[164],"class_list":["post-36032","publikacija","type-publikacija","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eu-en","category-in-focus","category-rule-of-law","tag-draft-law-on-internal-affairs","tag-joint-comments","tag-ministry-of-the-interior-of-the-republic-of-serbia","tag-nceu","tag-reform-agenda","vrsta-comment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacija\/36032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacija"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/publikacija"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36032"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacija\/36032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36047,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacija\/36032\/revisions\/36047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36032"},{"taxonomy":"vrsta","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vrsta?post=36032"},{"taxonomy":"pdfpub","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pdfpub?post=36032"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=36032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}