The desovereignization of the Serbian state, as a key consequence of the eurointegration process, is often justified by pseudoscientific arguments, which create the impression among the lay public that eurointegration is a politically neutral process solely aimed at creating an efficient, professional, and non-corrupt state apparatus. This is especially true for the reform of the judicial branch of government, which is being carried out according to the demands Brussels imposes on official Belgrade within Negotiation Chapter 23 dedicated to the judiciary.
Given the modern imperatives of an independent and depoliticized judiciary, desovereignization in the judicial branch is being carried out within the process of Serbia’s accession to the European Union in a subtle way, making it difficult for non-lawyers to understand the political background of this process.
Desovereignization in the Eurointegration process
To understand how the Serbian judiciary is being desovereignized in the eurointegration process, one must first consider the essence of judicial activity. The main task faced by a judge when resolving a specific case, whether it is a criminal or civil matter, is the problem of interpreting the legal norm (often norms) that the judge needs to apply to the specific case. Since the bearers of the judicial branch do not create but apply the law (a general legal norm), the judge, when resolving a specific case, is obliged, in the words of the classic Serbian legal scholar Slobodan Jovanović, to “express another’s will, the legislator’s, and not his own.” However, in practice, it often happens that it is difficult to draw a clear line between judicial interpretation of the legal text and construction, which, based on the interpretation of a general legal norm, actually creates a new rule that, through judicial practice as a source of law, becomes a new general legal norm.
Disenfranchisement of the people
When judges interpret a legal text enacted by a domestic legislator based on “legal” standards imposed in various ways by foreigners, judges actually appear as creators of law, and this law’s source is foreign political will. Thus, the domestic legislator is indirectly desovereignized. And since the legislative body (the national assembly) does not have original but delegated authority from the people, it is impossible to desovereignize the legislative body without simultaneously disenfranchising the bearer of original sovereignty – the people.
How foreign legal standards are imposed on Serbian judges in the eurointegration process, based on which they then interpret domestic legal norms, is best seen from the work program of the Judicial Academy, an institution whose work the supranational Brussels bureaucracy and the authorities of the United Kingdom and the USA are particularly interested in. This interest is primarily evidenced by the European Commission’s Annual Report on Serbia’s accession negotiations for 2023, which states that Serbia did not fulfill the obligation to adopt a new Law on the Judicial Academy last year (source, source). According to this Brussels order, the Minister of Justice, Maja Popović, recently stated that the Ministry is working on drafting a new law on the Judicial Academy (source). Otherwise, a renovation of the building housing the Judicial Academy has been allocated as much as 4 million euros (source).
From the Kandic fund to the judicial academy
The purpose of establishing this “independent” institution, for which Brussels officials show special care, is clearly seen from what its current director, Nenad Vujić, said about it, which can be found on the Judicial Academy’s website as a short presentation of this institution. According to Vujić, who began his legal career in the Humanitarian Law Center founded by Nataša Kandić, the main task of the Judicial Academy is the implementation of “generally accepted standards” of the EU through training programs for judicial and prosecutorial interns and assistants, as well as the continuous professional development of judges and prosecutors (here). The existing Law on the Judicial Academy grants this institution a monopoly position when it comes to professional training and development of holders of judicial functions in Serbia. The new law on the Judicial Academy can only be expected to strengthen its role, as well as its independence, in the name of independence and professionalization, from the executive and legislative branches, while at the same time entrusting its governing bodies, the Board of Directors and the Program Council, to judicial professional associations and the NGO sector.
Deadlines set by Brussels
By organizing training and exams for judges and prosecutors, as well as judicial and prosecutorial interns and assistants with the aim of implementing EU legal standards, the Judicial Academy becomes one of the key instruments for fulfilling Serbia’s primary obligation in the eurointegration process – harmonizing Serbia’s legal system with EU legal acquis. The obligation to harmonize domestic law with EU legal acquis from the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) falls not only on our legislator, as the National Assembly is obliged to amend existing Serbian legislation within the deadlines set by Brussels, but also on the judiciary, as Serbian courts, according to the SAA, are obliged to interpret existing Serbian law always in light of EU legal acquis and standards (para. 1, Art. 72 SAA: “The Parties recognize the importance of the approximation of Serbia’s existing legislation to that of the Community and its effective implementation. Serbia shall endeavor to ensure that its existing laws and future legislation will be gradually made compatible with that of the Community. Serbia shall ensure that existing and future legislation will be properly implemented and enforced”).
Guarantee of the survival of the neocolonial order
The goal is for the final exam passed after training at the Judicial Academy to become the key measure of the competence and qualification of a person for selection to a judicial or prosecutorial function in the future (source). Thus, the selection of candidates for the Judicial Academy and the completion of professional training in this institution becomes the key filter for entry into the judiciary of Serbia. The Judicial Academy should change the consciousness of Serbian judges and prosecutors through training programs, and their changed consciousness serves the Collective West as a guarantee that the judiciary in Serbia will “interpret” domestic law according to EU standards and legal acquis and in accordance with the practice of the Strasbourg Court, even if Serbia, which is already certain, remains without EU membership. More precisely, for the Collective West, judges and prosecutors who have undergone ideological training within the Judicial Academy are guarantees that the malignant tumor of Western anti-sovereign, anti-national, anti-family, and anti-Christian neoliberal ideology will enjoy constant legal protection in Serbia, as will the material interests of Western companies, without Serbia having to be admitted to the European Union. The judiciary nurtured in ideological courses of the Judicial Academy is a guarantee for the Collective West that possible changes in the composition of the executive and legislative branches will not lead to changes in the existing neocolonial order, based on the system of “independent institutions” like the Judicial Academy.
Financiers and commissioners of training
Given the role assigned to the Judicial Academy in the eurointegration process, it seems quite logical that this institution was of key importance for the formation of the National Network of Judges and Prosecutors (a total of 31 members), aimed at disseminating the practice of the European Court of Human Rights from Strasbourg, as the most important institutional instrument in the globalist agenda of imposing neoliberal ideology (source). At the same time, the main foreign partner of the Judicial Academy in the work of harmonizing Serbia’s legal system with EU standards, through training programs for judges and prosecutors and their young cadres, is the European Judicial Training Network (here), while the financiers, and thus commissioners of the training programs of the Judicial Academy, regularly include the European Union, the Council of Europe, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), and the British Council (source, source, source, source).
Training organized by FATF
The content of the training, workshops, and seminars through which judicial and prosecutorial interns and assistants, as well as judges and prosecutors themselves, go through, is sufficiently illustrated by the titles of some programs implemented only from January to June this year: “Training on Gender Equality and Gender-Based Violence,” “Sexual Violence – Challenges in Proving and Understanding the Position of the Victim,” “Access to Justice for Women,” “Training for Trainers: Handling Femicide Cases,” “Improving the Institutional Response to Domestic Violence,” “EU Civil Law in the Context of the Legal System of the Republic of Serbia” and “EU Criminal Law in the Context of the Legal System of the Republic of Serbia” (source).
Even training programs for judicial office holders that at first glance appear politically and ideologically neutral, such as “Combating Money Laundering” and “Preventing Money Laundering: FATF Recommendations and Immediate Outcomes,” are highly politically motivated. That the Collective West uses the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and its standards and recommendations as an instrument of political and economic struggle against the process of multipolarity and resovereignization of states is clearly evidenced by FATF’s intention to possibly include Russia on the so-called blacklist of a few high-risk countries for “money laundering” as early as December this year. Furthermore, FATF, after the start of the war in Ukraine, has already decided to suspend Russia’s membership in this Working Group (source).
On money laundering from two perspectives
It is interesting that the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Assistance also appears as an organizer of training for Serbian judges and prosecutors on the application of standards in combating “money laundering,” while the USA, adhering to the Western tradition of double standards, has not joined the OECD international standard that provides for automatic exchange of tax information in the fight against “money laundering” (CRS). The U.S. policy in the field of “money laundering” essentially boils down to the USA obligating other foreign financial institutions to provide them with information about the accounts of American citizens and companies, while the USA does not provide such information to other countries about the accounts of their citizens and companies. The USA, along with the United Kingdom, are actually the creators of offshore zones and this economic model, which, according to Thomas Piketty, is one of the main sources of economic inequality in the world and one of the main tools in the fight of globalists against the sovereign nation-state.
Silent offshore states
The USA began to undermine offshore zones and companies to the extent that another of their products – globalization – began to undermine centuries-long Western domination over time, as it enabled the main flows of money and technology to move from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific basin. Consequently, the Collective West fights against illegal money flows and offshore zones only to the extent that they threaten their interests, i.e., when untaxed capital from Western citizens and companies flows into them. For extracting untaxed capital from states considered their opponents or designated as colonies of the Collective West, the USA still maintains an entire network of offshore satellites, from the Virgin and Marshall Islands to Puerto Rico and Panama. To clearly see the Western policy of double standards in this area, it is enough to compare the lists of offshore territories and states published by Russia (from May 8, 2022) and the European Union (from February 24, 2022). The so-called EU blacklist does not include even 10 offshore territories and states listed in the Russian Federation’s list, which are in some form of political or fiscal relationship with certain EU members or Switzerland and the United Kingdom. These are Aruba, Gibraltar, Grenada, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Curacao, and Saint Martin, the Cayman Islands, the Channel Islands, and San Marino (source).
Interpretation of law through the lens of political stereotypes
The facts indicating the double standards of the West in the policy of combating “money laundering” will certainly not be presented to Serbian judges and prosecutors at the training sessions organized at the Judicial Academy by the U.S. Department of Justice and the German GIZ. But they will, for sure, present Russia, Russian companies, and citizens as the main threat in this area. Thus, on a topic that at first glance seems politically neutral – the fight against tax evasion – Serbian judges and prosecutors and their young cadres are imposed with first-rate political stereotypes during continuous training, through whose lens they will interpret and apply the law in our courts.